*B   21?   336 


Him 


Saint  Francis  Xavier 

id  Japan 


C.    REVILLE,    S.    J. 
Editor  of  America 


1919 


Saint  Francis  Xavier 

Vpostle  of  India  and  Japan 


By  JOHN    C.    REVILLE,   S.   J. 

Associate  Editor  of  America 


NEW  YORK 

THE  AMERICA   PR! 

1919 


JtotpHmt  potent: 

Joseph  us  H.  Rockwell,  SJ. 
Praepositus  Prov.  Marylandiae  Neo-Eboracensis 


Nttjtl  obatat: 


Jmpnmatur : 


Nfo-iEfrnrari : 


Arthurus   J.    Scanlan,    S.T.D. 

Censor  Librorum 


Joseph  us  F.  Mooney 


die  26,  Februaril,  1919 


Administrator 


Copyright,  1919     - 
By 
THE  AMERICA  PRESS 


CONTENTS 

Chapter  I — On  the  Hills  of  Navarre  (1506- 
1625)    1 

Chapter  II — In  the  Halls  of  Sainti;  Barbe 
(1525-1529)    8 

Chapter  III — A  Battle* for  a  Soul  (1529-1534)   15 

Chapter  IV — From  the  Seine  to  the  Tiber 
and  the  Tagus  (1534-1541) 22 

Chapter  V — With  the  Galleons  of  Portugal 
(1541-1542)    28 

Chapter  VI — In  the  Venice  of  India  (1542).  34 

Chapter  VII — Storm-Swept  Capes  and  Isles 
of  Palm  (1542-1549) 42 

Chapter  VIII — In  the  Land  of  the  Rising 
Sun  ( 1549-1552) 61 

Chapter  IX — The  Locked  Gate  and  the  Open- 
ing Portals  (1552) 74 


4CG203 


PREFACE 

This  sketch  of  the  life  and  character  of  the  Apostle 
of  India  and  Japan,  closely  follows  the  standard  lives 
of  the  great  missionary,  that  especially  of  Father  A. 
Brou,  S.J.,  the  monumental  "  Saint  Frangols  Xavier," 
which  combines  in  an  admirable  degree  the  qualities  of 
romantic  interest  and  scholarly  research.  To  Father 
Brou,  the  writer  has  closely  adhered,  for  with  his 
predecessors,  Cros  and  Michel,  this  most  authoritative 
of  all  the  historians  of  St.  Francis  Xavier  has  said  all 
that  need  be  known  of  the  "  giant  "  of  the  missions. 
But  other  volumes  have  been  consulted,  the  "  Monu- 
menta  Xaveriana"  the  "  Life  find  Letters  "  of  the  Saint 
by  Father  J.  H.  Coleridge,  SJ. ;  the  earlier  biographies, 
the  one  by  Bartoli  especially,  which  is  a  little  given  to 
exaggeration,  still  manages  to  thrill  its  readers  with 
its  epic  ring;  Bouhours,  life,  known  to  English  readers 
through  Dryden;  the  fine  sketch  in  dear  old  Alban 
Butler's  "  Lives  of  the  Saints  " ;  the  one  in  the  first 
volume  of  the  "  Varones  Ilustres  de  la  Compahia  de 
Jesus/'  and  Father  Martindale's  review  of  Xavier's 
career  in  the  first  section  of  his  studies  of  Jesuit 
Saints,  entitled  "In  God's  Army."  No  writer  dealing 
with  the  Saints  can  neglect  the  processes  of  their 
beatification  and  canonization  :  in  the  case  of  Xavier, 
these  have  been  faithfully  consulted  and  followed. 

Xavier  was  a  herald  of  the  Cross.  This  book  lays 
claim  neither  to  originality,  scholarship  nor  research. 
It  asks  but  one  privilege.  No  matter  how  narrow  a 
circle,  it  would  like  to  be  the  herald  of  the  virtues  of 
this  truly  great  man,  one  of  the  noblest  heroes  and 
Saints  of  the  Church  of  God. 

J.  C.  K. 


St.    Francis  Xavier 

I  n  kPXEB  I 
On  the  Hills  of  Navarre 

(1506-1525) 

IN  the  beginning  of  the  sixteenth  century,  at  the 
dawn  of  that  epoch  when  Spain  was  to  become 
the  first  power  in  the  world,  an  old  feudal  castle 
might  be  seen  on  the  southern  slope^of  the  western 
Pyrenees,  keeping  watch  like  a  faithful  sentinel  over 
the  highway  that  led  from  Upper  Navarre  into  the 
1  domain  of  Aragon.  With  its  moat,  over 
which  the  drawbridge  swung  from  its  heavy  chains, 
with  its  wall  of  defense  crenelated  and  loop- 
holed,  its  four  weather-beaten  towers  clasping  in 
their  arms  the  home  of  the  master,  the  castle 
looked  like  a  battle-scarred  warrior  on  duty  for 
country  and  king.  Over  the  castle  itself  mountain 
and  hill  flung  their  shadows.  Not  far  from  its  walls 
ran  the  stream  that  divided  Upper  Navarre  from 
-on.  At  a  short  distance  was  the  royal  villa 
of  Soz,  where  Ferdinand  the  Catholic  was  born. 
A  few  miles  away  under  the  marble  pavement  of  the 
monastery  of  Leyre,  the  old  Kings  of  Navarre,  "  after 
life's  fitful  fever  "  slept  the  sleep  that  knows  no  wak- 
ing, and  the  good  monks  came  to  pray  for  the  repose 
heir  souls.  Away  to  the  north-west  frowned  the 
ramparts  of  Pampeluna  and  almost  due  west  was  the 
little  town  of  Sangiiessa,  then  famous  for  its  monas- 
teries and  its  sch< 

In  this  old  h  picturesque  surround- 

.  on  the  Tm  Holy  Week,  the  seventh  of 

i  was  horn  t<>  Dona   Maria  de  Azpil- 

ife  of  Don  John  de  Jassu,  Counselor  to  the 

John  d'Albret,  and  Lord  of  Xavier  and  Ydocin. 


2  ST.    FRANCIS    XAVIER 

The  boy  received  in  Baptism  the  name  of  Francis. 
Catholics  throughout  the  world  venerate  him  as  the 
greatest  of  missionaries  and  apostles  since  the  days 
of  Peter  and  Paul  and  their  brethren,  and  call  him  St. 
Francis  Xavier.  He  was  born  a  few  weeks  before 
Columbus,  the  great  Pathfinder,  and  the  Discoverer  of 
the  New  World,  died  in  poverty  at  Valladolid,  as  if 
God  wished  that  the  man  who  bore  the  light  of  the 
Gospel  to  the  West  should  not  end  his  earthly  career 
before  a  child  was  given  to  Spain  who  should  bear  the 
message  of  the  Cross  to  the  remote  and  pagan  East. 

The  family,  in  which  Francis  $e  Jassu  y  Xavier 
was  the  sixth  child,  belonged  to  the  nobility  of  Na- 
varre. It  had  given,  on  the  father's  side,  to  the  ser- 
vice of  Church,  country  and  King,  magistrates  of 
irreproachable  honor,  learned  doctors,  fighting  men 
also,  who,  with  the  finest  qualities  of  Basque,  Na- 
varrese  and  Spanish  blood  mingling  in  their  veins, 
were  never  known  to  turn  back  from  a  fight  or  betray 
their  duty.  Dona  Maria  de  Azpilcueta,  the  mother 
of  Francis,  was  a  soldier's  (laughter  and  could  trace 
back  her  lineage  through  a  long  pedigree  of  feudal 
lords,  to  Duke  Eridon  Aznar,  the  common  ancestor  of 
the  Kings  of  Aragon  and  Navarre. 

But  in  their  fortress  home  of  Xavier,  Don  John  de 
Jassu  and  Doiia  Maria  de  Azpilcueta  seldom  thought 
or  spoke  of  their  ancestral  honors.  They  knew  how- 
little  these  honors  enhanced  their  genuine  worth,  and 
realized  that  it  was  not  in  them,  but  in  themselves,  in 
their  own  virtues,  in  their  own  lift-  and  conduct  that 
they  must  look  for  their  true  merit  and  greatness. 

From  all  that  we  can  gather  from  the  scanty  rec- 
ords of  the  childhood  and  boyhood  of  Francis,  the 
life  in  the  grim  stronghold  of  his  race,  must  have 
been  one  of  rugged  simplicity,  surrounded  by  an 
atmosphere  of  profound  faith,  the  faith  of  Catholic 
Spain  in  its  days  of  glory,  of  loyalty  to  ( rod  and  King, 


ST,    FRANCIS    XAVIER  3 

of  the  tenderest  union  between  the  lords  and  ma 

and  their  children.     There  IS  no  country 
in  the  world  where  children  are  treated  with  such  I 

n  Spain.     And  with  his  brothers  Michael 

and  John,  and  his  Maria,  Anna  and  Magdalena, 

ome  years,   hut    to   whom  he   was   de- 

;ly  attached,  the  us  of  the  future  apostle 

must  have  been  ideally  happy. 

For  the  castle  <>t*  Xavier  sheltered  a  truly  Christian 

family.    The  influence  of  the  grave  Don  John  de  Jassu 

and  of  the  gentle  Maria  de  Azpilcueta ;  the  example  of 

the    fair    Magdalena,    who    gave    up    her    position    as 

in-waiting  to  Isabella  the  Catholic  and  became 

a  Poor  Clare,  of  his  sister  Maria,  who  was  to  edify 

the  Abbey  of  Santa  Engracia  at  Pampeluna  by  her 

virtues;  the  priestly  life  and  the  learning  of  his  cousin. 

Doctor  Don  Martin  de  Azpilcueta,  one  of  the  most 

eminent   canonists   of   Spain ;   the   lessons   of   another 

stly  relative,  Don  Michael  de  Azpilcueta;  the  piety 

and   affection   of   his   maternal   aunt,   Dofia   Violanta, 

who  to  the  manners  of  a  high-born  Spanish  matron 

joined  the  virtues  of  a  recluse,  were  slowly  molding 

the  character  of  the  boy.     The  household  in  which  he 

lived    was   the   cradle   of   those  heroic   virtues   which 

later  on  he  was  to  practise.    The  seed  was  planted  in 

those  early  years  which  produced  such  splendid  har- 

in  India  and  Japan. 

While  the  example  of  that  Christian  household  was 

molding  his  character,  the  ancestral  memories  and  the 

picturesque   nature   around   him   were   helping   in   the 

The    hoy    could    roam    through    the   castle    and 

with   wondering  eves  upon  the  tapestries   which 

hung  on    it>    walls,    with    their   pictures    of    the    deeds 

:ii-  ances  inst  the  Moors,  or  the  legends 

of  the  Saints,  or  the  Life  of  Christ.     (  ►ften,  no  doubt, 

he  loitered   in   the  armory   where  hung  the  lance  and 

id  of  the  knights  of  a  bygone  age.  or  knelt  with 


4  ST.    FRANCIS    XAVIER 

the  faith  of  his  young  and  pure  heart  before  the 
miraculous  Crucifix  which  ever  since  the  thirteenth 
century  had  been  preserved  in  the  castle.  Every  room 
in  the  old  fortress  had  its  tale,  every  stone  and  turret 
whispered  its  legend  of  strife  and  war. 

Out  beyond  the  ramparts  were  the  hills  and  moun- 
tains of  Navarre  and  they  called  to  the  son  of  their 
hardy  mountaineer  stock.  Time  and  again  Francis 
scaled  their  cliffs  to  track  the  rabbit  amid  the  winter 
snows,  to  harry  the  eagle's  nest,  to  ramble  with  his 
Basque  playfellows  by  the  bank  of  the  stream  that 
brawled  down  the  hillside,  or  to  plunge  on  a  drowsy 
summer's  day  into  the  cool  waters  of  some  mountain 
lake.  We  know  from  his  own  admission  that  he  loved 
athletic  sports.  Later  on  he  humbly  confessed  that 
he  had  taken  some  pride  in  his  prowess  as  a  runner. 
In  his  misguided  zeal  and  spirit  of  mortification  he 
cruelly  chastised  himself  for  what  he  called  his  youth- 
ful vanity.  The  confession,  however,  throws  not  a 
little  light  on  the  character  of  Francis.  We  have  un- 
fortunately but  scant  details  as  to  his  early  years. 
We  know  that  he  lived  the  life  of  the  children  around 
him.  We  can  readily  picture  him,  as  one  of  his  biog- 
raphers has  done,  intelligent,  docile,  singularly  at- 
tractive in  speech,  form  and  manners,  a  lively  boy, 
fond  of  exercise,  skilful  at  running  and  jumping,  a 
splendid  hand  at  a  game  of  pelota,  the  national  sport, 
and  not  a  little  eager  for  the  victory  and  the  prize,  and 
in  childhood,  as  in  youth,  with  an  instinctive  love  of 
that  virtue  of  purity  which  he  preserved,  we  are  told, 
unsullied  to  the  grave. 

We  can  imagine  the  frame  of  the  picture.  We  can- 
not supply  the  details.  Documents  on  this  point  are 
so  far  missing.  Of  the  First  Communion  of  Francis 
Kavier,  one  of  the  most  fervent  lovers  of  the  Sacra 
nient  of  the  Altar,  we  know  nothing.  No  details 
are  given  us  of  his  early  education,  of  his  first  intro- 


ST.    FRANCIS    XAVIER  5 

duction  to  the  world  of  books  and  science  and  those 

scholastic   pursuits   in    which   later  on,   at    Paris,   he 

■  shine.     Don  John  de  Jassu  and  Doha  Maria 

>ubt  taught  him  his  letters.    Bui  was  it  at  Pampe- 

luna,  was  it  at  Sangiiessa  that  he  received  the  further 
rudiments  of  learning?     It  is  impossible  1  One 

thing,   however,   is  certain.     The   faith,  the  piety,  the 
fed    simplicity   of   his    father's   house,   his    father's 
integrity,  his  mother's  gentleness  and  piety, 
the  daily  Mass,  the  example  of  his  beloved  Magda- 
■hanging  the  splendors  of  a  court  for  the  pov- 
erty of  the  brides  of  Christ,   were  the  best  teachers 
of  the  bov  Francis.     Such  lessons  are  the  best  train- 
ers of  youth.    No  masters  can  take  their  place. 

Sorrow   came  to  complete  the   work.     On  the  fif- 
teenth  of   June,    1515,   the   father  of   our   Saint  saw 
the  rights   of  the  old   Kings  of   Navarre  transferred 
to  the  Sovereigns  of  Spain,  and  the  little  realm  of 
which  he  was  one  of  the  staunchest  defenders  officially 
annexed  to  the  territory  of  the  Spanish  monarch.     It 
a  blow  for  the  heart  of  that  stern  lover  of  justice, 
Don  John  de  Jassu,   which  he  did  not  long  survive. 
lie  died  broken-hearted  on  the  sixteenth  of  October 
the    same    year,      dints    orphaned    of    his    father, 
Francis  was  to  feel  what  was  perhaps  a  still  more  cruel 
For  when  in  an  effort  to  restore  to  the  throne 
their    former  eigns,    the    Navarrese    raised    the 

standard  of  revoll  and  a  devoted  band  held  out  against 
a  Spanish  troop  in   Azpilcueta,  his  mother's  ancestral 
home,   that   stern  monk  statesman.   Cardinal   Ximenes, 
red  the  fortresses  of  Navarre  i<»  be  leveled  to  the 
pilcueta  was  among  the  first  to  fall.     The 
le  of  Xavier  could  not  Ion-   escape.     So  all  that 
military  value  to  the  stronghold  was  destroyed. 
The  rampari  dismantled,  the  iron-spiked  gate 

of  the  drawbridge  thrown   down,  three  of  the  towers 
were  demolished.      All   that    remained   of   the   fortress 


6  ST.    FRANCIS    XAVIER 

was  the  house  proper.  Even  that,  through  plunder 
and  neglect,  was  shorn  of  nearly  all  its  rugged  splen- 
dor. Francis  was  eleven  years  old  when  the  romance 
and  story  of  the  House  of  Xavier  seemed  thus  about 
to  close  with  this  tragic  end.  The  loneliness  of  his 
mother,  widowed  of  the  support  of  the  prudent  hus- 
band, the  misfortunes  which  befell  his  brothers, 
Michael  and  John,  who  still  fought  for  the  rights  of 
their  deposed  sovereigns,  their  exile  from  the  halls 
of  their  fathers,  the  poverty  and  suffering  of  his 
family  an;d  kindred,  borne  by  all  with  Spanish  and 
Christian  fortitude,  made  a  deep  impression  on  the 
boy's  heart.  They  taught  him  already,  no  doubt,  a 
lesson  he  was  soon  to  learn  in  a  more  lasting  and  abid- 
ing form  from  the  lips  of  a  countryman  in  Paris,  that 
earthly  grandeur  is  but  vanity  and  dross.  They  made 
him  realize  that,  no  matter  what  were  his  own  ambi- 
tions, he  had  now  but  one  duty.  He  must  help  to 
rebuild  the  shattered  fortunes  of  his  house.  He  must 
help  Dona  Maria  de  Azpilcueta,  the  mother  he  ten- 
derly loved,  and  become  her  prop  and  stay.  When 
his  brothers  returnqd  from  the  turmoil  of  civil  war  to 
I  astle  Xavier,  Francis  was  in  his  eighteenth  year. 
In  1525  we  find  him  acting  as  agent  for  his  mother 
in  some  real-estate  transaction,  and  among  the  wit- 
nesses to  the  deed  we  find  a  carpenter  and  a  black- 
smith. Francis  was  not  ashamed  of  the  commonest 
tasks  when  duty  pointed  the  way.  In  better  times  the 
chatelaine  of  Xavier  would  have  hired  a  notary  for 
the  transaction. 

The  day,  however,  was  coming  when  he  must  choose 
his  vocation  in  life.  His  brothers  pointed  out  the  career 
of  arms.  His  father's  record  on  the  bench  and  in  the 
magistracy  led  him  to  dream  of  civil  honors  in  the 
ice  of  his  country.  But  in  spile  of  war  and  rumors 
of  war  and  hopes  of  civic  rewards,  Francis  had  ever  in 
his  heart  dreamt  of  the  glory  with  which  philosophy 


ST.    FRANCIS    XAVIEE  7 

n  their  on  a  mornin 

tembcr,    I  -il  to  his  mother  and 

home,  neither  of  which  he  was  ever  again 

\t   the  g  of  the  COSQ  he  knelt   for  his 

lie  then  mounted  his  sure-footed 

Spanish  mule  and.  not  without  a  tear  as  he  gazed  for 

the  last  time  on  his  mother's  face,  hut  with  heart  un- 

his  purpose  and  his  eyes  to  the  north.    A 

rut  later  he  had  disappeared  behind  a  shoulder  of 

the  hills.     He  was  on  his  way  to  Paris  to  complete  his 

lies  in  what  was  then  the  greatest  university  in  the 

world. 


CHAPTER  II 

In  the  Halls  of  Sainte  Barbe 

(1525-1529) 

WHEN  Xavier  reached  Paris  in  the  fall  of  1525, 
its  university  had  lost  much  of  its  former  glory, 
but  it  could  still  claim  that  it  surpassed  all  its 
sister  universities.  Between  3000  and  4000  students 
crowded  its  halls.  The  students'  quarter  was  on  the 
left  bank  of  the  Seine,  between  the  river  and  the  old 
walls  of  King  Philip  Augustus.  It  was  a  labyrinth  of 
lodging-houses  and  taverns  and  bookstalls,  of  schools 
and  churches  and  hospitals,  of  cookshops  and  tennis 
courts  and  burying  grounds  and  gardens  and  jails.  The 
students  formed  a  world  apart  from  the  life  of  the  city. 
They  had  their  own  laws  and  courts,  their  own  police 
and  bailiffs,  all  kept  busy  trying  to  keep  pace  among 
the  quarrelsome  citizens  of  this  miniature  republic. 
For,  as  they  were  divided  into  "  nations  "  arbitrarily 
selected,  such  as  France,  Picardy,  Normandy,  Ger- 
many, brawls  Were  incessant,  brawls  which  sometimes 
wound  up  in  a  mimic  civil  war.  Then  the  city  guard 
had  to  be  called  out,  pikes  were  leveled,  rapiers  drawn, 
the  arquebus  smoked  and  thundered  down  the  dingy 
alleys,  and  a  guard  or  freshman  lay  wounded  or  dead 
on  the  cobbled  highway. 

The  teaching,  to  which  formerly  a  vast  public  assem- 
bled in  open  spaces,  had  now  retired  to  the  privacy  of 
about  fifty  "  colleges  "  or  "halls,"  grouped  together, 
and  linked  by  galleries,  cloisters  or  hidden  byways. 
There  were  various  degrees  among  the  pupils.  There 
were  bursars,  who  received  tuition  and  everything  else 
free;  "  cameristes,"  who  were  boarded  gratis  but  bad 
to  provide  their  own  food,  and  "  cameristes  portion 
nistes,"  who  paid  for  tuition  and  board.  Xavier  was 
registered  among  these  last.  He  hired  for  his  service 
one  of  his  fellow-students  of  the  class  known  as  "  mar 


FRANCIS    XAVIER  9 

tinets,"  who  paid  their  way  through  college  by  attend- 
on  their  companions.     The  man  was  a   \a\ar 
id,  who  proved  to  be  an  unfit  associate 
the  high-minded  Maria  de  Azpilcueta.     The 

name  of  the  now  student  was  enrolled  among  thos< 

'  rench  "  Nation."  Francis  had  i<>v  classmates  lads 
from  France,  Italy,  Portugal,  Spain,  with  a  sprinkling 
ouths  from  Egypt,  Armenia  and  Persia.  The  col- 
lege hech  Sainte  Barbi,  then  frequented 
I  nun  Portugal  and  Spain.  The  Rector  of 
the  University  was  a  Portuguese,  James  de  Govea,  a 
man  of  upright  life,  a  theologian  of  unusual  gifts,  stern, 
impulsive,  but  generous  and  willing  to  aeknowledge 
that  he  could  be  mistaken  and  sincere  enough  to  try 
and  repair  a  blunder.  He  had  besides  the  gift  of  the 
true  teacher.  He  knew  how  to  arouse  enthusiasm  in 
the  hearts  of  his  pupils. 

The  first  scholastic  year  which  Francis  passed  at 
the  university  (1525-1526)  was  spent  in  completing 
his  literary  studies.  If  the  motley  student-body  by 
their  lack  of  discipline,  their  unruly  and  at  times 
riotous  manners,  their  freedom,  or  rather,  license,  of 
ch,   the  coars  of  their  pleasures,   presented 

no  little  danger  to  the  new  freshman,  not  a  little 
peril  was  also  to  be  found  in  some,  even  of  the  pro- 
ne were  infected  with  the  pagan  spirit 
which  followed  the  revival  of  learning  known  as  the 
Ren;  That   movement  in   its  better  elements 

found  encouragement    from  the  Church.     Among  its 
'    eminent    re  bishops, 

•nals  and  pope-.      Popes  like  Nicholas  V,  Pius  II 
■   it    their   patronage.      Unfortunatelv 
some   of   the   mo  ed   men   of  the   Renaissance 

up  a  pagan  code  of  morals, 
and   lived   more   like   cultured   pa|  Athens  and 

Rome  than   followers  of  the  Cross.     Though  funda- 
mentally   firm    in    the   dogmas    and    t<  s    of   the 


to  ST.    FRANCIS    XAVIER 

Church,  the  University  of  Paris  had  among  its  pro- 
fessors and  its  pupils  men  of  little  or  no  belief  in  the 
supernatural  or  the  Divine  mission  of  the^Church, 
men  of  the  lowest  standards  of  personal  conduct  and 
life. 

At  the  same  time  Lutheranism  had  crossed  the 
Rhine  and  infected  the  schools  of  Paris.  It  was  not 
as  yet  powerful  enough  to  make  allies  of  the  French 
monarch s  or  to  undermine  the  traditional  and  still 
deeply  cherished  beliefs  of  the  French  people.  But 
it  had  set  up  its  tortuous  propaganda,  and  was  working 
in  the  dark.  Against  these  evil  influences  Xavier  had 
to  be  on  guard.  Besides  these,  the  young  man's  am- 
bitions, the  passions  of  a  warm-blooded  son  of  the 
South,  were  stirring  in  his  soul.  It  would  be  to 
paint  a  false  picture  of  the  future  apostle  to  repre- 
sent him  as  free  from  the  temptations,  even  the 
coarsest,  that  beset  the  path  of  youth.  The  Saints 
do  not  rise  to  the  heights  of  virtue  because  they  do 
not  feel  in  their  hearts  the  stirring  of  the  sinful  in- 
clinations of  humanity,  but  because  they  rise  superior 
through  watchfulness,  mortification  and  self-control 
to  the  allurements  of  sin,  and  especially  of  pride  and 
sensuality. 

The  young  Navarrese  was  exposed  to  great  dangers. 
He  was  practically  friendless  and  alone  in  the  Siren 
City  whose  alluring  call  has  enticed  so  many  to  their 
ruin.  From  the  sanctuary  of  his  ancestral  home  he 
had  brought  to  Paris  a  sturdy  frame,  an  athlete's 
strength,  and,  by  the  grace  of  God  and  the  protection 
of  that  Heavenly  Queen  to  whom  his  mother  had 
taught  him  to  pray,  a  pure  heart.  As  at  Xavier,  he 
excelled  as  a  runner  and  athlete' at  the  University. 
His  manners  were  fascinating,  a  fact  witnessed  to  at 
every  stage  of  his  life.  To  know  him  was  to  love 
him.  He  was  generous  with  his  purse,  and,  though  a 
poor  scholar,  had  probably  a  little  more  to  spend  than 


FRANCIS    X  WIKk  n 

the    lean    and    unscrupulous    undergraduates     who 

crowded  the  fifty  halls  of  learning  clustered  round 
Sainte-J.arbe.  There  was  much  drinking  and  gam- 
bling and  carousing.  (  hie  master-  at  least  was  not 
ashamed  to  lead  his  pupils  to  the  worst  excesses  in 
which  honor  and  health,  and  the  last  threadbare  rem- 
nants of  decency  and  self-respect,  were  thrown  away. 

We  know  from  a  statement  made  in  India  by  Fran- 
cis and  found  in  the  "  Sclectac  Indiarum  Epistolae," 
that  it  was  only  by  a  special  protection  of  God  that 
he  was  saved  from  physical  and  spiritual  ruin.  Time 
and  again  temptation  was  purposely  flung  in  his  way. 
But  in  the  ancestral  casa,  Maria  de  Azpilcueta,  his 
mother,  and  in  her  cloister,  that  beloved  sister,  Mag- 
dalena,  were  praying  for  him.  Xavier  was  saved.  He 
shrank  in  horror  at  the  degradation  which  he  wit- 
nessed, but  by  which  he  was  never  tainted,  and  when 
the  unfaithful  master  died  a  victim  to  his  excesses. 
Providence  sent  him,  in  the  person  of  a  Spanish  pro- 
fessor at  the  University,  John  de  Pena,  a  friend  whose 
prudence  and  piety  won  the  heart  of  the  young  stu- 
dent.    Xavier  was  then  in  his  twenty-second  year. 

In  the  fall  of  1526,  Francis,  having  finished  his 
literary  studies,  had  begun  the  course  of  philosophy. 
In  the  Lent  of  1529  he  must  have  gone  up  for  his  ex- 
amination, the  one  technically  known  as  "  determi- 
nance."  lie  met  the  ordeal  successfully.  Henceforth 
he  could  style  himself  a  bachelor  of  arts  and  had  the 
right  to  teach  certain  elementary  branches.  In  1530 
he  was  a  Licentiate  of  Philosophy.  The  diploma  he 
then  received  gave  him  the  right  to  teach'  the  arts, 
sciences  and  philosophy  at  Paris  and  at  any  other  place 
of  his  choosing.  A  last  formality  had  to  be  gone 
through.  The  new  master  had  to  receive  his  master's 
cap.  We  do  not  know  the  precise  date  when  Xavier 
had  the  honor  conferred  upon  him.  But  we  know  that 
1  after  undergoing  the  examination  for  his  Licen- 


T2  ST.    FRANCIS    XAVIER 

tiate's  degree,  Master  Francis  Xavier  was  admitted  as 
a  professor  of  philosophy  in  one  of  the  university 
colleges,  that  of  Dormans-Beauvais. 

We  like  to  picture  the  Saints  eminent  in  all  things, 
endowed  with  every  gift  of  mind,  heart  and  soul.  But 
Go;d  cioes  not  always  thus  dower  even  His  best  friends. 
He  gives  them  the  qualities  they  need  for  their  work, 
and  these  in  generous  measure.  Other  gifts  He  may 
bestow  or  withdraw.  That  Xavier  had  intellectual 
endowments  beyond  the  ordinary,  his  course  at  the 
university  goes  far  to  show.  But  his  letters  and  the 
few  notes  we  have  from  his  pen  do  not  give  any 
striking  evidence  of  literary  or  artistic  skill.  He  was 
too  busy  about  great  enterprises,  too  earnest  about 
the  salvation  of  souls  to  pay  much  attention  to  the 
artifices  of  style.  But  that  he  was  a  keen  logician,  a 
splendid  debater — that  he  could  confute  the  ablest  of 
the  sophists  among  the  Brahmins  and  the  Bonzes  of  the 
East,  is  evident  from  every  testimony  left  to  us  by 
eye-witnesses  and  contemporaries  of  his  missionary 
days  in  India  and  Japan.  The  missionary  was  mightily 
assisted  in  the  defense  of  the  mysteries  he  taught 
by  the  lessons  of  that  Catholic  philosophy  which  he 
learnt  and  afterwards  imparted  in  the  University  of 
Paris.  Of  the  teaching  of  Xavier  we  know  little.  Yet 
it  is  evident  that  the  heart  of  the  young  doctor  was  set 
on  making  his  name  and  winning  his  laurels.  But  only 
faint  echoes  of  the  fame  he  won  have  come  down  to 
us.  But  it  was  not  as  a  searcher  after  truth,  as  a  stu- 
dent of  abstruse  problems  that  God  had  marked  out 
his  career.  He  was  to  be  essentially  a  man  of  action, 
a  doer  of  deeds. 

God  was  slowly  preparing  him  for  the  task.  When 
in  1530  Xavier  went  up  for  his  Licentiate's  degree, 
Pierre  le  Fevre,  his  room-mate  and  fellow-student  at 
Sainte-Barbe,  was  facing  the  same  test.  To  the  casual 
observer  it  would  seem  as  if  chance  alone  had  thrown 


ST.    FRANCIS    XAVIER  13 

tliese  two  men  together.  But  God,  who  was  watching 
over  the  young  teacher,  had  sent  Pierre  le  Fevre  to 
be   his   angel   guardian   and    friend.      Pierre   was  the 

son  of  a  poor  Savoyard  peasant.  As  a  child  he  had 
watched  on  the  slopes  of  the  Alps  over  his  father's 
flock.      From    childhood    he   had    shown    a    character 

[ordinarily  gentle  and  winsome,  an  intellect  of 
rare  penetration,  a  piety  of  the  most  solid  yet  attractive 
kind.  In  a  moment  of  special  inspiration  he  had  made 
a  vow  of  chastity  while  following  the  trail  of  his  sheep 
on  the  rocky  hillside.  The  purity  of  his  soul  shone 
on  his  face.  At  Paris  as  in  his  native  hamlet  he  in- 
spired respect  and  love,  lie  radiated  goodness  and 
holim 

The  Savoyard  peasant,  keen  of  intellect,  distin- 
guished already  as  a  Greek  scholar  and  for  his  knowl- 
edge of  Aristotle,  was  the  friend  needed  by  the  young 
Xavarrese  hidalgo.  One  of  those  strong  and  tender 
friendships  sprang  up  between  them  such  as  the  Saints 
know,  which  was  to  bind  them  with  cords  which 
death  alone  was  to  sever.  In  his  admirable  "  Memo- 
rial," a  brief  record  of  his  spiritual  experiences,  Le 
Fevre  blesses  the  hour  when  he  had  for  a  master  John 
de  Pefia  and  for  a  friend  and  companion,  Master 
Francis  Xavier,  And  Xavier,  far  away  from  the 
friend  of  his  university  days,  will  take  him  for  his 
protector  on  his  journeys  in  the  East,  and  when  he 
learns  of  his  death  will  pray  to  the  blessed  soul 
Pierre  le  Fevre. 

In  July,  1529,  a  courier  came  to  Xavier  from  his 
native  hills.  Maria  de  Azpilcueta  had  gone  to  receive 
her  reward  for  a  life  of  singular  fidelity  to  the  highest 
ideals  of  a  Christian  mother  and  wife.  Xavier  had 
been  tenderly  devoted  to  his  mother.  He  mourned 
her  loss.  But  another  messenger  sent  especially  for 
Xavier's  soul  had  also  come  from  Spain.     For  in  the 

ruary  of    [528  a   Spanish  scholar,  swarthy  of  fea- 


i4  ST.    FRANCIS    XAVIER 

lures,  with  a  slight  limp,  meanly  clad,  but  evidently 
of  gentle  birth,  reserved  of  speech,  but  with  a  flash 
in  his  eyes  that  told  of  a  high  purpose  and  an  indom- 
itable will,  had  registered  as  an  extern  at  the  College 
de  Montaigu.  The  name  then  entered  on  the  college 
roster  was  to  become  famous  in  the  history  of  the 
world  and  of  the  Church  of  God.  The  stranger  had 
been  a  courtier,  a  poet,  a  friend  of  princes,  a  gay 
cavalier.  Dreams  of  ambition  and  of  love  had  come 
to  him.  He  had  loved  the  world.  The  world  had 
flattered  him  and  thrown  him  its  laurels.  The  laurels 
had  soon  faded,  even  the  laurels  of  the  soldier  and 
the  hero.  On  the  walls  of  Pampeluna,  which  he  had 
gallantly  but  vainly  tried  to  save,  he  had  fallen 
grievously  wounded.  God  had  smitten  him  down  as 
of  old  he  had  done  to  Paul  on  the  road  to  Damascus. 
It  was  Don  Ignatius  de  Loyola,  the  soldier-pilgrim, 
the  author  of  the  "  Spiritual  Exercises/'  the  Founder 
of  the  Society  of  Jesus,  the  instrument  chosen  by 
Providence  to  win  over  the  soul  of  Xavier  finally  and 
unreservedly  to  the  service  of  God. 

On  the  opening  of  schools  in  1529,  Le  Fevre  tells 
us  in  his  "  Memorial,"  Ignatius  was  quartered  at 
Sainte-Barbe  and  shared  the  room  of  Xavier  and  his 
friend.  In  His  own  sweet  designs  God  was  beginning 
to  waylay  the  soul  of  the  Navarrese  gentleman.  For 
it  does  not  seem  that  at  first  Xavier  was  much  attracted 
to  the  rather  shabby  student,  although  he  was  forced 
to  acknowledge  that  the  newxomer  thoroughly  under- 
stood the  world  and  its  ways.  But  all  those  who  lived 
with-  Ignatius  unanimously  tell  us  that  it  was  well- 
nigh  impossible  to  resist  the  fascination  of  his  speech 
and  manners,  his  relentless  logic,  his  calm  yet  fiery 
soul,  his  practical  sense,  his  knightly  enthusiasm,  his 
extraordinary  sanctity. 


CHAPTER  HI 

\   Battle  for  a  Soul 

A        RANGE  duel  then  took  place  between  [gna- 
tius  and  Xavier,  a  hat  tic  for  a  soul.     There  are 
dramas  like  such  a  contest.     Did   [gnatius 

clearly  what  was  at  stake?     Did  he  realize  that 

ier  left   to  his  worldly  views  meant  a  great  soul 

1  k)d,   thousands  of  souls   lost   to  Christ?     By 

Divine  inspiration,  did  he  realize  that  the  soul 

ivarrese  doctor  absolutely  dedicated  to  Christ, 

meant  the  lessons  of  the  Gospel  carried  to  India  and 

Hi  and  the  East?     We  cannot  tell.     But  he  felt 

that  the  soul  of  Xavier  was  worth  fighting  for.     He 

must  win  and  conquer  it.     And  slowly  the  battle  was 

g    won.      With   that    keen    and    practical   psycho- 

al   insight   which  was  one  of  his  greatest  gifts, 

1  the  character  of  his  companion.    Xavier 

above  the  coarser  temptations  of  youth.     But  he 

ambitious.     He  dreamt  of  success  and  fame. 

atius   had   himself    felt   the   stings   of   ambition, 

"  that  last  infirmity  of  noble  mind."     The  hollowness 

arth's  baubles  he  had  tested.     But  he  saw  that 

there  was  an  ambition   whose  dreams  would  not  de- 

e,  whose  pursuit  would  not  debase,  and  whose  re- 

tisfy  the  heart  of  its  votary.     If  men 

I  he  ambitious  for  the  perishable  things  of  earth. 

why  should  they  not  labor  for  the  things  of  eternity? 

The  ambitious  dreams  of  Xavier  therefore  must  not 

;  they  must  he  directed  to  substance  and 

lity. 

tomist  that  he  was.  Ignatius  applied  the 

scalpel  of  truth  very   gently   at   first   to  the   spiritual 

wounds  of  his  compai  rancis  was  not  averse  to 

found  plenty  of  occasions  from  the 

ccognize  his 

15 


16  ST.    FRANCIS    XAVIER 

merit.  Francis  was  ever  free  with  his  purse;  his 
generosity  soon  emptied  it.  Ignatius,  poor  himself 
but  not  without  some  rich  and  generous  friends,  man- 
aged to  help  his  fellow-student  so  delicately  and  with 
such  tact  that  Francis  could  not  refuse  to  accept 
his  alms.  Ignatius  later  on  seized  the  occasion  to 
remind  him  that  wealth  and  honors  were  fleeting,  that 
there  was  something  nobler  in  life  than  to  grasp  at 
shadows  and  to  seek  for  that  which  cannot  satisfy 
the  soul.  Then,  with  that  (deep  conviction  which  was 
the  fruit  of  his  own  grasp  of  the  realities  of  time 
and  eternity,  he  spoke  the  one  golden  sentence  which 
has  all  of  time  and  eternity  in  its  narrow  compass  and 
which  was  to  change  the  heart  of  his  listener :  "  For 
what  doth  it  profit  a  man,  if  he  gain  the  whole  world, 
and  suffer  the  loss  of  his  own  soul?  Or  what  ex- 
change shall  a  man  give  for  his  soul  ?  "  Simple  words, 
commonplace  at  first  to  the  young  Navarrese.  So  little 
then  did  Xavier  heed  them  that  when  in  1531  Ignatius 
was  most  insistent  in  repeating  them,  the  scion  of  the 
Jassus  was  busy  in  having  his  titles  of  nobility  verified. 
Yet  the  words  had,  little  by  little,  sunk  into  the 
heart  of  the  promising  university  professor.  Again 
and  again  they  came  to  his  mind.  They  began  to 
sound  like  a  great  bell  in  his  soul.  He  could  not  shake* 
off  their  salutary  spell.  Ignatius  was  praying,  watch- 
ing, warding  off  every  possible  danger  from  this 
chosen  soul  which  he  felt  had  been  entrusted  to  him. 
A  skilled  duelist,  he  was  slowly  beating  down  his  op- 
ponent's guard.  He  gently  warned  Xavier  against  the 
danger  of  certain  heretical  teachings  then  in  vogue  in 
the  university,  for  in  1531  Calvin  was  at  the  College 
de  Fortet,  almost  next  door  to  Sainte-Barbe,  and  men 
whose  orthodoxy  was  not  above  suspicion,  like  Nich- 
olas Kop  and  Maturin  Cordier,  had  about  that  time 
passed  at  Sainte-liarbe  itself.  The  danger  was  not 
an  imaginary  one,  for  we  find  Xavier  ("  Monumenta 


FR  VNCIS    XAVIER  17 

riana,"  \  thanking  God  that  through  M 

tius  he  had  been  saved  from  it.     And  while 
praying,   Magdalena,  the  belov* 

and  the  companion  of   Xavier's  boyhood,   now   AW 
of  tl  ndia,  after  a  life  of  sanctity, 

rom  an  illness  in  which  every  nerve 
d  with  pain.     One  of  her  nuns  had  been   seized 
with  a  mortal  sickness.     The  Abbess  asked  to  die  in 
1.     She  sacrified  her  life,   it   was  said,   for 
Xavier's  soul.    The  sacrifice  must  have  weighed  h< 
ily  in  the  scales  of  God,     Magdalena  died  Januarx 

In  that  year  Don  Ignatius  de  Loyola,  the 
-(tidier  of  Pampeluna,  won. the  noblest,  perhaps,  of  his 
1  »attle-.  Converted  at  last  by  that  one  magic  pip 
which  ever  sounded  in  his  ear,  "  For  what  doth  it  profit 
?  "  Xavier  surrendered  at  last  and  gave  him- 
self entirely,  unreservedly  to  Ignatius  and  to  God. 

When   in   the  beginning  of    [534   Pierre  le   Fevre, 

who  before  leaving  the  world  had  gone  to  receive  his 

father's  blessing,  returned  to  Paris,  he  found  Francis 

a  changed  man.     lie  understood  the  miracle  of  grace 

h  had  been   wrought.      It   was  so  complete  that 

both  he  and   Ignatius   had   now   to  check  the  ardors 

of  the  new  convert.     In  his  works  of  penance,  in  his 

vigils    and    in    h  .    in    his    zeal    and    humility, 

going   almost    to    extremes.       He    wished 

there  and   then   to   give   tip   his   j  hair   and 

rom  the  world.     Ignatius  hade  him  wait.      He 

had    other    plans    which    he    wished    that    he    and    his 

nds   should    slowly  and   deliberately   mature. 

they  went  about  the  halls  of  the  unive  tudy- 

•    Ignatius,  coaching  and  lecturing, 

and   Xavier.     But  their 

hearts  were  set  on  higher  things.     Though  they  wisely 

10  them  hey  could  not  entirely 

under  the  bushel  the  light  of  their  example  and 

holiness.      Ignatius    and    his    friends    gradually    saw    a 


i8  ST.    FRANCIS    XAVIER 

little  band  of  followers  join  their  company.  They 
were  Nicholas  Bobadilla,  James  Laynez,  Alphonsus 
Salmeron,  Spaniards,  and  Simon  Rodriguez,  a  Portu- 
guese, all  university  men,  Laynez  and  Salmeron,  the 
latter  of  whom  was  only  18,  men  of  extraordinary  tal- 
ents, who  as  theologians  were  destined  to  play  an  im- 
portant part  at  the  Council  of  Trent  and  in  the  Cath- 
olic movement  against  the  Reformation. 

To  these  chosen  souls  Ignatius  disclosed  his  plans. 
Perhaps  even  in  his  mind  they  were  not  as  yet  en- 
tirely clear.  The  idea  of  founding  a  new  Religious 
Order  does  not  seem  at  first  to  have  presented  itself 
very  definitely  to  the  mind  of  the  soldier  of  Pampe- 
luna.  He  wished  first  of  all  their  personal  sancti- 
flcation  and  then  would  urge  them  to  labor  for 
the  salvation  and  perfection  of  their  neighbor.  He 
laid  before  them  the  principles  of  the  Christian  and 
the  spiritual  life.  In  that  life  God  was  to  be  su- 
preme. He  was  to  be  loved  and  served  above  all 
things.  For  man  was  created  to  know,  love  and 
serve  God  and  thus  save  his  soul.  Created  objects 
were  given  to  man  as  stepping  stones  to  ascend  to 
God.  They  were  to  be  used  to  help  man  in  the  fur- 
therance of  the  service  of  God.  Man  should  use  them 
when  they  helped  him  for  that  end ;  he  should  abstain 
from  their  use  when  they  hindered  him  in  the  prose- 
cution of  that  end.  Men  were  to  detach  themselves 
from  inordinate  love  of  created  objects.  They  were 
not  to  set  their  hearts  on  riches,  or  honors,  on  place  or 
fame,  or  pleasure.  What  did  reason,  what  did  Reve- 
lation say?  That  was  the  only  standard.  They  were 
to  look  to  one  thing  alone:  what  is  it  that  furthers 
God's  purpose  in  life,  what  is  it  that  hinders  it,  and 
act  accord ingly. 

The  men  who  listened  to  Ignatius  could  not  escape 
the  relentless  logic  of  such  a  principle.  Bill  they 
saw  that  it  had  its  grandeur,  and  that,  rightly  under- 


FRANCIS    XAVIEK  19 

ractical   application   to   life  gave   to  life 
and  life's  purposes  true  dignity  and  worth,  brought 
•  d  happiness  into  the  soul.     The  companions 
of  Ignatius   were  trained   in  logic  and  every  branch 
hilosophy.    They  sought  for  a  loophole  of  escape 
from    the    iron    ring    of    those    premises    and    conclu- 
5,    which   they   had    heard   before,  but  never  so 
■ly  realized.    There  was  none.    Then  Ignatius  laid 
re    them    the   nature,    the   punishments,   the   hid- 
of  sin.     He  described  the  fall  of  the  Angels, 
unlocked  the  gates  of  hell.     In  a  wonderful  series  of 
pictures  he  sketched  the  life,  the  death,  the  resurrec- 
of  Christ.     He  pointed  to  Him  as  their  Captain, 
their  King,  their  Model  and  Guide.     He  depicted  the 
trials,  the  hardships  of  the  Kingdom  of  Christ,  showed 
them   two  standards,  the  standard  of  Christ  and  tin- 
standard  of   Satan.     He  laid  bare  the  wiles  of  the 
arch-enemy  of  mankind,  showed  them  Christ  the  Lord 
of  Glory  embracing  poverty,  contempt,  suffering  and 
death   to  save   fallen  man.     He  told  them  what  they 
already  knew,  that   enemies  were  making  inroads  on 
the  Kingdom  of  Christ.     In  Europe  there  was  revolt 
In  Asia  and  across  the  western  seas  there 
were  millions   to   whom   its   standard  and  its  lessons 
had    never  been   borne.      Might  they  not  become  by 
their  poverty,  their  contempt  of  the  false  maxims  of 
rid,    their    lives    of    mortification,    their    zeal, 
while  extending  the  Kingdom  of  Christ  in  their  own 
Is,   the   instrument-    to   enlarge    its  borders  in  the 
round  them?     For  that  they  must  deny  them- 
he  Cross,  conquer  their  passions,  rule 
and  mortify  their  hearts,  be  other  Chi : 

\avier  must  have  list  such  a  program! 

It  was   the  plan,   so  simple,   E 

faultless  of   the  book   Ignatius  had  written  in 

after  his  conversion.     That  book, 
many  souls  to 


ST.    FRANCIS    XAVIER 

God  as  it  contains  letters.  It  opened  to  Xavier  vistas 
he  had  never  dreamt  of.  He.  would  yet  do  great  things, 
but  not  for  self.  There  was,  then  a  field  for  his  am- 
bitions in  which  he  might  without  fear  give  them  full 
play.  There  were  kingdoms  to  conquer,  there  was 
a  stupendous  battle  to  be  waged,  a  prize  to  be  won. 
His  heart  caught  the  flame  and  the  enthusiasm  of  his 
master.  Away  now  dreams  of  earthly  success  and 
pomp  and  human  love !  Depart  visions  of  power  and 
triumph !  Welcome  pang  and  poverty  and  suffering, 
and  loneliness  and  shame  and  heart-agony  and  death, 
for  souls,  for  Christ! 

Ignatius  easily  won  his  companions  to  his  plan. 
They  were  first  to  make  together  the  three  ordinary 
vows  of  poverty,  chastity  and  obedience,  with  a  spe- 
cial vow  of  obedience  to  the  Pope.  They  were  then 
to  go  to  Venice  and  try  to  make  a  pilgrimage  thence 
to  Jerusalem,  and  if  within  a  reasonable  time  they 
found  this  part  of  the  program  impracticable,  they 
were  to  go  to  Rome  and  place  themselves  at  the  dis- 
position of  the  Sovereign  Pontiff.  Meanwhile  they 
were  to  continue  their  scholastic  duties  at  the 
university. 

On  August  15,  1534,  an  historic  scene  took  place  in 
the  crypt  of  the  Church  of  Notre  Dame  de  Mont- 
mart  re,  on  the  spot  where  legend  tells  us  St.  Denis 
suffered  martyrdom  for  the  Faith.  The  ceremony  was 
a  simple  one,  but  it  was  destined  to  be  productive  of 
far-reaching  and  long-enduring  results.  Le  Fevre,  who 
had  been  ordained  priest  a  few  months  before,  tells 
us  a  part  at  least  of  the  story  : 

In  that  same  year,  on  the  Feast  of  the  Assumption  oi  the 
Most  Blessed  Virgin,  all  those  among  us  who  then  shared 
the  designs  of  Ignatius,  and  who  had  already  made  the  Spirit- 
ual Exercises,  except  Master  Xavier,  who  had  not  yet  made 
them,  went  to  Notre  Dame  de  Montmartre,  and  there  we 
took  a  vow  to  serve  God,  and  to  start  on  the  appointed  day 
for  Jerusalem,  and  to  abandon  kinsfolk  and  everything  else 


* 


FRANCIS    XAVIER  21 

ntied 

the  r<  our  return   from  the  Holy  Land, 

If    ourselv.  the  obedi<  the   Roman    Pontiff. 

at   this   fir-t   meeting   were   [gnatius, 

ivier,    then    I  blaster    Bobadilla, 

Master  Laynez,   Master  Salmeron,  Master  Simon  Rodriguez. 

From  an  account  left  us  b)  the  last-named,  Simon 
Rodriguez,   we   learn  that    Le    Fevre  said   the    M 
Before  giving  the  Holy  Eucharist  to  his  companions 
the  Sacred  Host  in  his  hands  and  turned  to- 
ts them.      'Then/'  says   Rodriguez,  "with  their 
rts  fixed  on  God,  kneeling  on  the  pavement  of  the 
chapel,  all,  without   leaving  their  places,  pronounced 
their  VOWS  in  a  clear  voice  ><>  as  to  he  heard  by  all, 
then   they   communicated."      Le    Fevre   then   returned 
to  the  altar,  pronpunced  his  vows  like  the  others  and 
communicated.     When  all  was  over,  adds  Rodriguez, 
they  went  to  the  fountain  of  St.   Denis  to  Spend  the 
there.     The  memories   of   the   simple  but   noble 
mony   and  of  the  holy  joys  he  then   experienced 
left  a  life-long  impression  on  the  heart  of  Xavier. 

A  few  days  after  he  began  the  Spiritual  Exercises. 
He  entered  upon  them  as  a  convert  to  grace.  He 
came  from  his  thirty  days  of  solitude  and  communings 
with  God  a  hero  and  a   saint.   Two  years  more 

i  in  the  lecture  hall.     Me  then  made  a  last  sacri- 

I    resigned    a   canon  r\    to    which    he   had   been 

tive  province.     The  time  was  at  hand 

when  he  and   his  companions   were   to   start   on   their 

piou>  <  '  to  be  in   Venice  in  the 

Jane  In  the  November  of  the  preceding 

yea-  '11   to  the  halls  he  loved   and 

who  will  haunt  him  in  the  Far  East.    He 

in  his  thirtieth  \ 


CHAPTER  IV 

From  the  Seine  to  the  Tiber  and  the  Tagus 

(1534-1541) 

WAR  had  broken  out  between  Francis  I  and 
Charles  V.  For  Xavier  and  his  Spanish  com- 
panions the  journey  would  be  under  any  cir- 
cumstance a  painful  one,  for  they  were  traveling  like 
poor  scholars,  on  foot,  with  scanty  provisions  and 
without  protection.  They  decided,  in  order  to  avoid 
the  armies  of  France  and  the  Emperor,  to  pass  through 
the  neutral  territories  of  Alsace-Lorraine,  the  Rhine- 
land  and  the  Tyrol.  Simon  Rodriguez  has  left  us  a 
brief  account  of  this  journey.  For  fifty  days  they 
struggled  through  lonely  villages,  amidst  the  rain,  the 
snows  and  ice  of  winter,  their  beads  slung  like  a 
baldric  over  their  shoulders,  reciting  the  rosary  and 
the  Psalms,  speaking  to  the  poor  they  met,  and  among 
themselves,  of  God  and  His  love,  and  of  holy  things. 
Sometimes  children,  old  men  and  women  ran  out  to 
kiss  their  hands  and  their  rosaries.  At  other  times  they 
were  rudely  spoken  to  or  ridiculed.  They  trudged  on, 
however,  God,  says  Rodriguez,  visibly  protecting  theta. 
Xavier  was  serving  his  apprenticeship  for  the  hard- 
ships to  come.  On  January  8,  1537,  they  were  in  Venice 
of  the  hundred  isles.     Ignatius  was  awaiting  them. 

The  Commander-in-Chief  divided  his  forces.  He 
had  but  a  handful  of  men  under  his  command.  These 
were  to  work  for  souls,  for  the  poor,  the  outcast,  the 
sinner.  Le  Fevre  and  Xavier  were  assigned  to  the 
hospital  of  the  incurables.  Xavier's  soul  now  began 
to  reveal  its  true  nobility.  The  proujd  Navarrese  had 
little  Italian  and  even  the  children  laughed  at  his 
blunders.  But  he  spoke  to  them  of  God,  of  I  lis  Blessed 
Mother,  of  sin  and  its  punishments,  of  the  Passion  of 
Christ,  of  the  splendors  of  Holy  Mass.  He  had  been 
dainty  in  his  tastes.     1  le  now  swept  out  the  hospital 

22 


FRANCIS    XAVIEK  23 

ed  the  sores  and  the  ulcers  of  the 

tendance  upon  a  poor  leper  such 

Mi)  as  would  cause  US  horror  and  dlS§ 
did  not  I  of  faith  discern  in  them  the  sublin 

charity  and  the   Divine  folly  of  self-abasement  and 

But    Venice    was    only    a    training-camp    for    his 

soldiers.     Ignatius  hade   them   strike  their  tents,   no 

difficult  task,  for  they  slept  at  times  under  the  open 

sky.     He  and  his  companions  remembered  their  vow: 

must  go  to  Rome  and  kneel  at  the  feet  of  the 

ir  o\  Christ.     In  the  spring  of   [537  they  were  in 

Eternal  City.     As  at    Venice  they  had  scarcely 

ed  at  the  splendors  of  the  city  of  the  Doges,  so 

Rome  they  closed  their  eves  to  the  grandeur  and 

the  pomp  of  the  City  of  the  Seven   Hills.     They  had 

not  come  as  artists  or  dilettanti,  but  as  apostles,  cate- 

chists,  the  servants  of  the  poor.     Pope  Paul  III  re- 

ed  them  kindly,  heard  them  discuss  question 
philosophy  and  theology,   frankly   expressed  his   ad- 
miration  for  their  talents,  blessed  their  undertaking, 
them  full  authorization  to  pass  over  to  Jerusalem, 
but  1  nous  doubts  as  to  the  success  of  this 

intended  pilgrimage.  The  Pope  was  right,  for  Venice 
;ir  point  of  declaring  war  against  the  Turks 
and  thus  blocking  the  sea-.  Ignatius  bade  them  return 
;<>  Venice.  In  May  of  that  same  year  they  were  hack 
on    the  al    times    on    the 

\avier  had  dreamt  that  he  carried  an 
;n  on  his  shoulders  and  that  it  was  a  heavy  bur 

:  tell  how  heavy  it  was.     But  Xavier's 
I 
In  that  m\  -  bowed  Xavier,  dii 

what  the   future  had  in  >r  him. 

n    the    shoulders   of 

St.  John  the 
►rdained  priest.    Some  time  after. 


24  ST.    FRANCIS    XAVIER 

he  said  his  first  Mass  at  Vicenza.  At  the  altar,  when 
he  held  his  God  in  his  trembling  hands,  he  could  not 
restrain  the  tears  of  joy  that  welled  up  from  the 
depths  of  his  soul.  His  face  seemed  radiant  with  the 
light  of  another  world.  So  transformed  did  his  whole 
person  appear,  that  according  to  Tursellini,  his  biog- 
rapher, the  assistants,  joining  their  tears  to  his,  could 
not  but  feel,  not  only  that  he  believed  in  the  presence 
of  his  Lord  in  his  hands,  but  that  he  contemplated  with 
his  very  eyes  the  hidden  reality  of  the  sacred  mystery. 
-In  India,  in  Japan,  on  the  decks  of  the  merchant-ship 
and  the  man-of-war,  in  the  hovels  of  the  poor,  the 
Holy  Mass  will  ever  be  for  him  the  source  of  his 
strength,  the  reward  of  his  toil.  At  night  after  the 
day's  hardships  and  sufTering,  he  will  often  rest  his 
head  on  the  steps  of  the  altar  at  the  feet  of  his  Sacra- 
mental God. 

Now  a  priest,  Xavier  throws  himself  with  all  the 
ardor  of  his  soul  into  the  work  of  preaching,  hearing 
confessions,  visiting  the  sick  and  the  prisoners.  In 
spite  of  his  robust  health  he  falls  sick  at  Bassano.  But 
Rodriguez-  tells  us  that  St.  Jerome,  a  Saint  dear  to 
Xavier  and  a  patron  of  his  house,  came  to  his  aid, 
cured  him,  and  told  him  that  he  would  soon  be  at 
Bologna  and  greatly  suffer  there.  Winter  came  and 
the  words  of  the  heavenly  visitor  were  verified. 
Bologna  listened  with  admiration  to  the  preaching  of 
this  new  apostle  whose  broken  Italian  was  sprinkled 
with  bits  of  Spanish  and  French,  but  the  eloquence  of 
whose  words  and  the  angelic  beauty  of  whose  life  no 
one  could  resist.  On  the  streets,  in  the  courtyards  of 
the  university,  in  church,  jail  and  chapel,  throngs 
gathered  to  hear  him.  Crowds  flocked  to  see  him  say 
Mass,  during  which  he  fell  at  times  into  an  ecstasy  of 
adoration  and  love.  Again  he  fell  seriously  ill,  but  in 
spite  of  his  deadly  weakness,  he  continued  his  labors. 
As  the  year  had  passed  without  the  chance  of  the  ful- 


ST.    FRANCIS    XAVIER  25 

hlmcni  of  the  vow  to  go  to  Jerusalem,  under  orders 
from  his  father  and  captain  Ignatius.  Xavier  returned 
to  Koine.     It  was  about  Easter  time,  [538. 

Again  the  same  apostolic  labors,  the  same  works  of 
indefatigable  charity  and  zeal.  And  as  Ignatius  was 
now  definitely  organizing  the  Society  of  Jesus  and 
giving  the  final  draft  to  its  constitutions,  Xavier  was 
long  with  his  Chief  and  his  brethren  in  friendly  con- 
clave to  settle  all  things  for  the  greater  glory  of  God 
and  the  good  of  souls.  The  Sovereign  Pontiff  soon 
after  approved  the  Society  of  Jesus  thus  admitting  it 
into  the  official  family  of  those  great  Orders  which 
under  such  glorious  leaders  as  Dominic,  Benedict  and 
Francis,  had  done  wonderful  things  for  the  good  of 
humanity  and  the  glory  of  the  Church. 

But  Ignatius  had  been  in  conference  with  others 
les  his  brethren.  He  had  been  visited  by  Don 
Pedro  de  Mascarenhas,  Ambassador  to  Rome  of  John 
III.  King  of  Portugal,  who  had  made  a  startling  re- 
quest to  him  in  the  name  of  his  royal  master.  The 
request  had  been  borne  also  to  Pope  Paul  HI.  The 
King  of  Portugal  was  anxious  to  carry  on  the  work 
of  Vasco  de  Gama  and  Albuquerque  for  the  evangel- 
ization of  the  vast  Portuguese  colonies  in  the  East. 
There  were  millions  in  (ioa,  along  the  western  shores 
of  India,  in  the  Spice  Islands,  in  Malacca,  in  Ceylon, 
who  had  never  heard  of  Christ  and  His  Gospel.  The 
Ik-Ids  were  white  for  the  harvest.  Whole  nations 
weir  sunk  in  the  darkness  and  degradation  of  pagan- 
ism. There  were  blind  eyes  trying  to  pierce  the  dark- 
e  -hackled  hands  stretched  forth  for 
a  deliverer.     Priests,  apostle  needed.     Would 

[gnatius  give  King  John  the  laborers  for  the  harvest? 

It  was  an  appeal  which  the  heart  of  Ignatius  could 
understand.  ( iod  was  opening  up  a  held  for  his  zeal 
which  he  had  ever  been  anxious  to  till.  He  would 
detail  one  or  two  of  his  sons  to  go  to  India.      He  laid 


26  ST.    FRANCIS    XAVIER 

the  plan  before  the  Pope.  It  was  heartily  commended 
and  approved.  Rodriguez  and  Bobadilla  would  be 
detached  for  this  glorious  service.  Quickly  Rodriguez, 
who  eventually  did  not  sail  for  the  Portuguese  domin- 
ions in  the  East,  started  for  Lisbon.  But  Bobadilla  fell 
dangerously  ill.  A  substitute  must  be  found.  Ignatius 
prayed,  never  so  fervently,  never  so  bravely.  He  fore- 
saw the  coming  blow.  He  knew  he  would  have  to 
sacrifice  his  beloved  Xavier.  He  summoned  that  dear 
friend.  The  plan  was  laid  before  him.  Would  he  go? 
Xavier  understood.  It  was  his  dream  coming  true.  It 
was  the  call  of  God.  Gaily,  brave  Spanish  cavalier  and 
knight  of  the  Cross  that  he  wTas,  the  words  flashed  to 
his  smiling  lips  in  the  old  Spanish  tongue :  "  Pues,  sus, 
heme  aquiJ":    Forward!    Here  I  am. 

The  next  day,  March  16,  1540,  for  the  last  time 
Xavier  knelt  at  the  feet  of  his  master  and  friend  to 
receive  his  parting  blessing.  They  were  never  to  see 
each  other  again,  but  their  souls  were  linked  together 
like  the  souls  of  David  and  Jonathan.  Literally  almost 
without  purse  or  scrip,  Xavier  set  out  for  Portugal  in 
the  suite  of  Mascarenhas,  denying  himself  the  comforts 
and  conveniences  which  the  ambassador  vainly  tried  to 
make  him  share  with  his  company.  The  journey  car- 
ried him  to  the  shrine  of  Our  Lady  of  Loretto,  then 
through  Bologna  where  he  was  hailed  as  a  saint  by  his 
old  friends,  who  would  scarcely  let  him  go,  on  by 
Modena  and  Parma,  through  the  Piedmontese  terri- 
tory, over  the  Alps  and  Pyrenees,  down  finally  through 
the  Spanish  provinces.  Towards  the  middle  of  June 
he  was  in  the  city  by  the  Tagus.  He  had  to  wait  in 
Lisbon  until  the  spring  of  the  following  year  for  the 
departure  of  the  India  fleet.  He  prepared  for  the  day 
for  which  he  longed  by  penance  and  prayer,  by  preach- 
ing to  the  king  and  court,  by  the  same  life  of  penance, 
charity,  zeal,  which  he  had  led  in  Bologna  and  in 
Koine.     Shortly  before  he  sailed,  Paul  HI  by  a  special 


FRANCIS    KAVIER 

;  nominated  him  his  Apostolic  Nuncio  with  all  the 

•  f  that  office.    Master  Francis 

fficial   envoy   to   David,   King   of 

Ethiopia,  to  the  lords  and  m  the  isles  of  the 

Red  Sea.  to  the  nations  of  the  East.     There  was  one 
title  he  prized  still  more.     He  was  to  he  the  messenger 
Ivation  and  the  herald  of  the 


CHAPTER  V 

With  the  Galleons  of  Portugal 

(1541-1542) 

ON  the  morning  of  the  seventh  of  April,  1541, 
five  Portuguese  ships,  half  men-of-war,  half 
transports,  burly  of  girth,  blunt-nosed,  lumber- 
ing of  motion,  were  swinging  at  anchor  in  the  harbor 
of  Lisbon  at  the  mouth  of  the  Tagus.  There  was 
noise  on  shore,  bustle  aboard  the  ships.  The  crowd 
gathered  on  the  docks,  friends  of  the  crews  of  the 
departing  fleet,  relatives,  mothers,  wives,  waving  a  last 
farewell  to  their  loved  ones,  could  hear  the  grinding 
of  the  anchor  chains,  the  creaking  of  the  yardarms, 
the  flapping  of  the  sails.  Here  and  there  the  muzzle 
of  a  gun  frowning  through  a  port-hole,  told  the  on- 
lookers that  the  King's  ships  might  have  to  give  battle 
to  the  pirates  of  the  eastern  seas  before  they  reached 
their  goal.  For  almost  fifty  years  the  people  of  Lisbon 
had  witnessed  the  sailing  of  the  India  fleet.  They 
never  saw  it  without  emotion.  For  it  told  them  of  the 
days  when  their  daring  navigators,  Diaz,  Vasco  de 
Gama  and  Albuquerque,  set  out  as  rivals  almost  of 
Columbus,  for  the  discovery  of  new  lands.  It  re- 
minded them  also  of  the  hardships  and  the  trials  which 
their  countrymen,  their  sons,  their  husbands,  their 
wives  and  daughters  had  to  undergo  to  build  up  their 
great  Indian  empire. 

For  an  instant  a  solemn  silence  wraps  the  rolling 
galleons.  The  cheering  and  the  farewells  have  died 
down  on  shore.  There  is  a  puff  of  smoke,  the  flash  of 
a  gun,  from  the  "  Santiago/'  the  flagship.  Bronzed 
figures  are  seen  straining  at  the  capstan  and  the 
anchor  chains.  Don  Martin  de  Sousa,  Admiral  of 
King  John  III,  orders  the  royal  pennant  to  be  unfurled. 
It  is  the  signal  of  the  new  governor-general  of  the 
Portuguese  Empire  in  the   East  to  put  to  sea.     For 

28 


FRANCIS    XAVIEK  29 

ef  instant  sailors,  soldiers,  adventurers,  mer- 
chant, gentleman,  slave,  admiral  and  cabin-hoy  tnm 
the  little  chapel  of  (  )ur  Lady  in  Belen, 
and  murmur  a  prayer.  No  Portuguese  seaman  then 
dared  to  leave  the  shores  of  the  Tagus,  without  asking 
for  the  protection  of  the  Star  of  the  Sea. 

Ma  ncis  Kavier  was  on  the  flagship  with  the 

ernor.      The  morning  of  the  departure,  tradi- 

S  us,  a  movable  pulpit  had  been  dragged  from 

(  >ur  Lady's  chapel  in  Belen,  and  Xavier  had  preached 

to  the  assembled  crews  of  the  fleet  and  their  friends. 

It  was  the  last  time  that  the  voice  of  Xavier  was  to  be 

1  in   bar  Shortly  after  he  had  boarded  the 

lb-  would  in  his  humility  and  spirit  of 

:ice  have  chosen  another  vessel.    But  he  was  going 

to  India  as  the  Nuncio  of  the  Pope,  and  John  III  had 

red  that  he  should  sail  in  the  immediate  company 

of  the  n»  nor.     lie  was  to  have  a  special  cabin 

1  out   for  him,   and   was  to  eat   at  the  admiral's 

table.     The  cabin  he  ed,  but  he  soon  turned  it 

into  itaJ   for  the  sick,  the  food  he  distributed 

among  the  crew  and  the  passengers.     He  slept  on  the 

deck  or  in  some  dingy  corner  of  the  hold,  his  head 

propped    on    a    coil    of    rope.      Before    darkness    had 

mantled  the  waters  through  which  the  five  ships  were 

shor  their   way,   the   admiral,   passengers   and 

1   that   a   saint   was   sailing   with  them  to 

the  [ndi( 

For  the  immediate  objects  of  1  that  virtue 

which    is   th<  rtic   one  of  his   career  as  an 

had  the  ngers  of  the 

11  v    the    thousand   souls   that 
ith  him  on   the   "Santiago."      It   was  at  first 
ial.      The   Portuguese  colonies 
enturer,  the  ambitious  official, 
the  merchant  a  quickly  and  not  too  scrup- 

ulously made  fortune  of  noble  but  broken-down 


30  ST.    FRANCIS    XAVIER 

families  anxious  to  repair  their  losses,  escaped  con- 
victs, pardoned  criminals  anxious  or  at  least  willing  to 
hide  their  record  at  Malacca  or  Goa,  men  tired  of  the 
drab  life  of  home,  and  drawn  to  foreign  and  still  only 
partially  known  countries  by  the  sheer  love  of  adven- 
ture, knights  errant  of  the  counting  house  and  the 
camp  ready  for  any  enterprise  that  smacked  of  ro- 
mance and  danger.  Not  all  these  men  were  wholly 
corrupt  or  degraded,  but  they  were  careless  of  speech, 
of  lax  morals,  quarrelsome,  ready  at  the  least  provo- 
cation to  whip  out  their  daggers  and  swords.  But  they 
were  also  amenable  to  sentiments  of  honor  and  fair 
play.  In  spite  of  years  of  neglect  of  the  duties  of 
their  religion,  they  had  the  deep  faith  of  their  race. 
They  did  not  turn  hypocrites,  because  they  had  turned 
away  from  God.  They  did  not  try  to  cloak  their  sins 
under  lying  names.  They  feared  the  justice  of  that 
God  whom  they  had  recklessly  offended,  they  dreaded 
the  torments  of  hell  about  whose  existence  they  raised 
no  puerile  and  ridiculous  objections.  They  were  not 
so  hardened  as  not  to  melt  in  tears  of  genuine  sorrow 
at  the  story  of  the  Passion  of  their  Redeemer  dying 
for  them  on  the  Cross.  They  were  capable  of  high 
resolve,  of  heroic  penance  for  their  follies  and  their 
sins.  They  had  the  vices  of  adventurers,  but  they 
could  at  times  practise  the  virtues  of  soldiers  of  the 
Cross. 

Amid  this  motley  crew  Xavier  appeared  like  an 
Angel  of  God.  He  lived  among  them.  From  their 
coarse  fare  he  took  his  food.  He  mingled  in  their 
games,  listened  to  their  tales  of  adventure,  sat  down 
with  them  at  cards,  stifling  by  his  presence  and  the 
inborn  dignity  of  his  every  word  and  look,  the  blas- 
phemy or  the  doubtful  jest  which  too  often  leaped  to 
their  lips.  He  watched  over  their  sick,  and  with  his 
own  hands  smoothed  the  brow  of  the  fever-stricken. 
His  zeal,  his  charity  knew  no  bounds.     On  Sundays 


ST.    FRANCIS    XAVIER  31 

s  during  the  long  journey  he  said  Mass 
for  the  admiral  and  his  crew.  As  the  galleons 
ploughed  the  southern  seas,  past  Madeira,  Cape  Verde, 
ra  Leone  and  dipped  their  bulging  girth  into  the 
es  that  beat  upon  the  coast  of  Guinea,  his  voice 
mingled  with  the  music  of  the  basso-toned  organ  of 
the  sea.  With  simplest  eloquence  he  could  raise  their 
hearts  to  Him  whose  pathway  is  on  the  deep  and  who 
leads  the  billows  of  the  ocean  as  easily  as  the  shepherd 
of  their  native  hills,  crook  in  hand,  could  guide  his 
sheep.  At  set  of  sun,  when  at  one  stride  came  the 
dark  in  those  southern  latitudes,  and  stars,  which 
Xavier  had  never  seen,  lit  their  beacon  fires  in  the 
heavens,  the  "  Salve  Regina  "  was  sung  to  the  strains 
they  had  learned  in  the  vales  of  Estremadura,  or  on 
the  hills  around  which  the  Tagus  or  the  Mondego 
twined  the  ribbon  of  their  silver  stream. 

The  galleons  that  sped  to  the  Indies  had  once  been 
called  infernos  of  misery,  crime  and  sin,  floating  hos- 
pitals of  physical  and  moral  wretchedness.  Not  so 
the  "  Santiago  "  now.  Martin  de  Sousa  saw  what  a 
gift  God  had  sent  him  in  Francis.  He  gave  him  every 
opportunity  to  attend  to  the  physical  and  spiritual 
needs  of  his  men.  Xavier  heard  confessions,  put  an 
end  to  the  hatred  and  brawls  so  frequent  among  the 
unruly  element  aboard,  encouraged  the  terrified  women 
and  the  children,  who  were  accompanying  their  hus- 
bands and  fathers  to  the  East,  when  the  lumbering 
ships  were  buffeted  by  the  billows  of  an  ocean  whipped 
to    fury    by    a    tropic    storm,    or   when    becalmed    for 

lis   limp  and   dead,  decks 
afire  under  a  en  and  children, 

officers  and  c  -tood  still,  as  idle  as 

painted  - 

last   the   wind   rose,   the  galleons  lifted   to  the 

round  the  Cape  of  Storms. 

ne  of  the  great  passages  of  the  world's  literature, 


32  ST.    FRANCIS    XAVIER 

the  prince  of  Portuguese  writers,  Luis  de  Camoens, 
has  described  in  his  "  Lusiads  "  the  terrible  monster 
which  appeared  to  Vasco  de  Gama,  when  for  the  first 
time  he  rounded  the  Cape  of  Good  Hope  on  his  way 
to  India. 

As  the  ships  of  the  great  explorer  reached  the  cape, 
the  guardian  deity  of  its  shores  and  waters,  huge  of 
size  like  another  Colossus  of  Rhodes,  grim  and  hideous 
of  aspect,  rose  amidst  the  murk  of  darkness  and  storm, 
and  towering  over  the  galleons,  with  a  voice  that 
struck  terror  into  every  heart  and  boomed  over  the 
uproar  of  the  waves,  threatened  shipwreck,  ruin  and 
death  to  the  daring  mortals  who  had  been  rash  enough 
to  invade  his  empire. 

No  such  monster  appeared  to  Xavier  and  his  com- 
panions on  the  "  Santiago."  But  as  the  apostle 
thought,  when  he  rounded  the  southern  limits  of 
Africa,  of  the  dangers,  the  trials  he  was  going  to  face 
in  India,  his  iron  will  and  his  apostolic  spirit  might 
well  have  been  cowed  and  daunted  by  these  terrors 
far  more  real  than  the  fabulous  Adamastor  sum- 
moned from  the  deep  by  the  genius  of  Camoens.  But 
undaunted  by  bodily  suffering  through  months  of  sea- 
sickness, speeding  more  rapidly  in  desire  towards  the 
goal  of  his  journey,  than  the  slow-moving  galleons 
could  carry  him,  upborne  by  his  zeal,  his  love  of  Christ 
and  souls,  praying  at  morn  and  eve  for  a  sight  of  the 
promised  shore,  Francis  sped  on.  The  fleet  had  left 
Lisbon  at  the  beginning  of  April,  1541.  In  the  be- 
ginning of  September,  after  six  months  of  one  of  the 
most  painful  journeys  ever  experienced  by  the  India 
fleet,  after  rounding  the  Cape  and  swinging  north- 
wards the  squadron  reached  Mozambique,  then  known 
as  the  graveyard  of  Portugal.  Here  crews  and  ships 
tarried  until  the  mid-winter  of  the.  following  year. 
Xavier,  whose  strength  was  not  equal  to  his  zeal,  fell 
sick  and  was  carried  to  the  hospital.     But  when  the 


FRANCIS    XAVIER 
fleet  sail  the  Saint  dragged  himself 

■:1am."    the    ship    to    which    1  now 

gned.     Pointing  almost  due  north  the  fleet  made 
nda,  a  little  north  of  the  present   Moml 

and  staved  there  for  a  few  days.  The  ships  then 
headed  for  the  island  of  the  entrance  of 

the  Red  Sea,  where  they  again  tarried  some  time  and 
finally  after  sailing  almost  due  east,  dropped  anchor 
in  sight  of  Goa,  the  capital  of   Portuguese  India.     It 

h  of  May,  [542.  They  had  left  Lis 
thirteen  months  before.  From  the  deck  of  the 
"  Coulam  "  Xavier  could  survey  the  kingdom  he  had 
come  to  conquer.  The  fringes  of  that  kingdom  that 
stretched  along  the  coast  had  been  won  partly  at  least 
to  a  nominal  allegiance  to  the  Gospel.  But  to  the 
north  and  south,  and  eastward  lay  an  unknown,  mys- 
OUntry  with  its  still  more  mysterious  peoples, 
with  their  strange  castes,  their  splendid  temples,  their 
hideous  worship  and  idols,  their  Rajahs  decked  in 
pearl  and  gold,  their  Brahmins,  their  vices,  their  u 
ranee  of  the  true  God.  The  fields  were  white  for  the 
harvest.  The  laborer  was  at  hand  to  garner  the 
shea\ 


CHAPTER  VI 

In  the  Venice  of  India 

(1542) 

IN  one  of  the  numerous  letters  which  the  Apostle 
of  India  has  left  us,  and  in  which  he  has  so  art- 
lessly laid  bare  the  secrets  of  his  soul,  he  tells  us 
that  when  he  arrived  at  Goa  he  found  it  peopled  with 
Christians.  The  city,  which  later  times  called  the 
Golden,  and  not  without  exaggeration  compared  to 
Venice,  was  fair  to  behold,  he  writes.  He  marveled 
at  its  monasteries,  its  cathedral,  its  hospitals  and 
churches,  and  thanked  God  that  in  the  midst  of  so 
many  unbelievers  he  found  such  striking  evidences  of 
piety  and  faith. 

Ten  years  after  his  landing  in  Goa,  Xavier  was  to 
close  his  heroic  career  of  apostle  and  his  unparal- 
leled series  of  victories  and  conquests  for  the  Faith  on 
a  lonely  island  off  the  China  coast,  for  ten  years 
only  his  hands  would  be  able  to  hold  up  the  torch  of 
truth,  for,  giant  though  he  was,  they  would  not  be  able 
to  bear  any  longer  the  titanic  burden  which  his  zeal 
and  his  charity  would  place  upon  them.  But  while- the 
torch  burned  in  his  hands  it  was  to  light  a  continent 
with  its  imperishable  flame.  From  Goa  the  light  was 
to  spread  to  Calicut,  to  Travancore,  to  the  capes  and 
the  headlands  of  the  southernmost  extremities  of  India. 
Malacca,  the  Spice  Islands,  the  isles  of  far  Japan 
would  behold  its  <  beams.  Scarcely  had  the  Saint 
touched  the  shores  of  India  and  knelt  to  kiss  the  soil 
he  was  to  win  for  the  King  whom  Master  Ignatius 
had  made  him  know  so  well  and  love  so  tenderly,  than 
he  longed  to  begin  his  work  of  herald  and  apostle  of 
Christ. 

All  the  Saints  are  sealed  with  one  common  sign, 
their  supereminent  love  of  God.  It  is  to  that  they 
owe  their  sanctity.     That  is  the  secret  of  their  great- 


ST.    FRANCIS   XAVIER  35 

ness,  the  corner  stone  on  which  they  rear  the  edifice 
heir  ho1  The  apostolic   career   of   Francis 

proves  at  every  step,  from  the  moment  he  took  to 
heart  the  lesson  he  learnt  from  Ignatius,  to  the  days 
of  his  labors  in  the  capital  of  Portuguese  India,  at 
Cape  Comorin,  in  the  Island  of  the  Moor,  in  the  cities 
of  Japan,  to  his  death  at  the  gates  of  China,  that  he 
loved  God  with  a  deep,  tender,  passionate  ardor.  His 
motto  and  his  battle-cry,  his  song  of  triumph,  his 
thanksgiving  hymn,  was  the  short  aspiration,  like  that 
of  a  burning  seraph:  "0  Sanctissirna  Trinitas"  O 
Triir  t    Holy.     But  to   this  he  added   another 

which  gives  us  an  insight  into  his  own  special  char- 
acteristic and  virtue :"Da  mihi  animas" /Give  me  souls! 
He  thirsted  for  souls.  He  longed  to  extend  the  bor- 
of  the  Kingdom  of  Christ.  And  souls  were  per- 
ishing at  Goa,  on  the  Fishery  Coast,  in  the  Moluccas, 
souls  for  which  Christ,  his  King,  his  God  had  shed 
His  blood,  the  souls  of  Portuguese  captains  and  mer- 
chants, of  rich  and  poor,  of  bond  and  free.  He  must 
save  them.  Through  him  they  must  be  delivered  from 
the  thraldom  of  sin,  from  their  vices,  their  ignorance 
and  degradation.  Perhaps  he  knew  that  his  span  of 
life  was  measured,  that  he  had  but  a  few  swiftly  pass- 
S  in  which  to  labor  and  suffer  for  the  accom- 
plishment of  his  heroic  dream.  "  To  the  field  then,"  he 
in  his  heart.  "  soldier  of  Christ,  for  the  night 
cometh  when  no  man  can  work !" 

Xavier  mad  tor  his  camp.: 

in  tl  ting  in  his  humility  that  he  was 

'olic  Nuncio  of  Paul  III, 
he  made  it  1  kneel  at  the  feet  of  the 

pious  Bishop  of  (  n  d'Albuquerque,  and  humbly 

ask  him  for  the  facull  r  his 

:ons   in  his  vast  diocese.     'I  re   only  too 

willingly  granted  by  the  prelate  who   welcomed  him 


36  ST.    FRANCIS    XAVIER 

to  the  ranks  of  his  few  and  none  too  zealous  clergy. 
Xavier  without  delay  began  his  labors. 

In  the  Venice  of  the  East  he  found  an  immense  field 
open  to  his  zeal.  If  Goa  did  not  resemble  the  Venice 
of  the  Adriatic  in  all  its  splendors,  it  imitated  but  too 
closely  the  vices  of  the  City  of  the  Doges  in  its  worst 
days.  In  its  outer  form  of  worship,  in  its  military 
and  civic  heads,  the  city  was  nominally  Christian.  But 
Mussulmans  from  Gujerat  and  Ormuz,  Arabs,  Per- 
sians, Turks,  Kaffirs  and  Moors,  black  and  copper- 
colored  merchants  and  slave  dealers  from  the  isles  of 
the  archipelago  and  lands  still  further  east,  swarmed 
in  the  bazaars,  the  streets,  on  the  docks  and  in  the 
counting-houses,  bringing  from  their  effeminating 
climate  and  their  degrading  religion  almost  all  the 
vices  to  which  men  can  succumb.  Attracted  to  India 
by  the  glitter  of  gold,  by  the  thirst  of  pleasure,  by  the 
comparative  ease  with  which  they  could  evade  the 
restraints  of  the  moral  law  and  the  hand  of  justice, 
Portuguese  officials,  seamen,  tradesmen  lived  in  a 
frightful  contempt  of  the  laws  of  God  and  man.  Those 
who  could  afford  it  lived  like  Turkish  lords  surrounded 
with  their  harems ;  the  others,  with  a  few  exceptions, 
ignored  the  laws  of  Christian  marriage  and  openly 
led  a  life  of  sin.  Women  were  degraded,  those  of  the 
inferior  races  were  enslaved  to  the  will  and  the 
passions  of  their  masters ;  the  few  white  Portuguese 
senoras,  pampered  into  a  life  of  luxury,  where  they 
lost  nearly  all  the  virtues  of  their  once  sturdy  race. 
Slaves  were  sold  on  the  very  steps  of  the  cathedral. 
The  Bishop  had  time  and  again  bravely  spoken  against 
all  these  evils,  which  the  best  men  in  the  colony  knew 
would  sooner  or  later  bring  on  its  ruin.  In  vain.  The 
civil  authorities  had  appealed  to  Portugal.  But  Lisbon 
and  the  King  and  justice  were  thousands  of  miles 
across  the  ocean,  and  the  royal  galleons  lumbered 
slowly   with   the   plea   and   the   answer.     Too   often 


FRANCIS    XAVIER 

d  judges  connived  with  the  wrongdoer. 

they  spoke-  in  startling  words,     in  the 

in  which  Francis  died,  in  [552,  the  judges  of  Goa 

r  to  the   King  that  there  was  no  more  justice  in 

India;  none  in  the  viceroy,  Alton  ironha,  none 

among  those  whose  duty  it  was  to  see  it  done.     They 

reminded  his   Majesty  of  the  murder  of  the  King  of 

lam  and  of  the  King  of  Pyllor,  of  that  of  the  King 

of   Ceylon   done   to   death    for  the   sake  of  his  gold. 

They  told  him  that  the  Moors  had  lost  all   faith  in 

their  honor  and   their  word.     They   closed   with   the 

pathetic  appeal ;  Help  us  or  we  perish ! 

If  religion  was  not  openly  flouted  it  had  not  gone 
very  deeply  into  the  hearts  of  the  people.    There  was 
a  profusion  of  outward  ceremony  and  pomp,  of  sing- 
and  proo  but  little  of  the  inward  spirit  of 

I  iospel.  Throughout  the  whole  colony  only  two 
or  three  zealous  and  gifted  priests  made  it  their  duty 
to  preach  regularly  ;  in  the  remote  garrisons  and  | 

is  said  only  at  rare  intervals  during  the  year. 

the  Portuguese  settlers  went  to  church,  but  they 

turned  the  church  into  a  bazaar,  and  though  at  the 

■nil  moment  of  the  Consecration  they  stopped  their 

ip  and  rose  to  point  with  their  hands  to  the  Sacred 

Host   and   exclaim   "  (  )    Merciful   God,"    they   showed 

on  the  whole  but  little  of  that  living   faith  which  is 

the  proudest  possession  of  a  Catholic  people.     And 

their  religious  indifference  passed   into  every   sphere 

of  life.     The  fin;  re  in  a  deplorable  condition, 

s    were   rotting   at   the    wharves,   the    warehoi 

empty  and  the  st(  tined    for  the  colony 

either   through    I  led    or    the    embezzlement   of 

offici  :hed  Goa  deplete  filed,  and  famine 

dked   at   the  1"  a  city  that  might  have 

e  of  the  richest  in  the  world.     This  does  not 

mak<  t  picture  and  we  should  like  to 

ivier  himself  and  his  brethren, 


38  ST.    FRANCIS    XAVIER 

together  with  his  contemporaries  who  were  bold 
enough  to  expose  the  real  state  of  things,  who  give 
us  its  details. 

Goa  then  and  the  Indian  colonies  of  Portugal  were 
the  field  suited  to  Xavier's  labor  and  zeal.  He  knew 
that  the  work  before  him  was  God's  work  and  that  it 
must  be  done  with  the  weapons  of  prayer,  humility 
and  mortification.  He  might  have  taken  his  humble 
lodging  with  John  d'Albuquerque,  or  one  of  his  friends. 
He  chose  the  hospital.  The  time  he  could  spare  from 
the  work  of  preaching  and  catechizing,  hearing  con- 
fessions, he  spent  at  the  bedside  of  the  sick,  and  when 
night  came  on  sultry,  heavy  and  boisterous  with  half- 
barbaric  mirth,  he  retired  to  the  church  and  spent  long 
hours  in  prayer  before  the  Tabernacle.  Only  when 
outworn  nature  forced  him,  would  he  lie  down  upon 
his  miserable  pallet  or  frequently,  as  we  said,  stretch 
reverently  his  wearied  head  on  the  altar  steps,  even  in 
his  sleep,  his  heart  watching  with  the  tireless  Watcher 
of  the  Tabernacle.  Kind  and  loving  friends  would 
gladly  have  received  him  at  their  tables.  He  gently 
refused  their  hospitality  and  begged  his  food  at  some 
poor  man's  door  or  took  it  as  an  alms  from  the  fare  of 
the  sick  ward.  When  a  sinner  refused  to  listen  to  his 
words,  and  was  deaf  to  arguments  and  appeals  drawn 
from  the  terrors  of  hell  or  the  sacred  memories  of 
the  Passion  of  Christ,  Xavier  seized  his  scourge  and 
beat  his  bared  shoulders  until  the  blood  ran,  to  soften 
that  hardened  heart. 

A  few  days  after  he  landed,  Goa  began  to  realize 
that  a  saint  had  come  to  India.  There  is  no  need  to 
call  upon  the  miracles  which  his  biographers  tell  us 
took  place  at  his  command  or  in  his  behalf,  to  find  out 
the  secret  of  the  success  which  soon  crowned  his 
labors.  His  life  was  a  living  miracle  of  charity,  of 
patience,  of  angelic  purity,  of  zeal,  of  abnegation  and 
heroic  self-forgetfulness  and  self-control.  Goa,  so  long 


ST.    FRANCIS    XAVIER  39 

indifferent,  was  galvanized  out  of  its  slumber.  With 
his   practical    insight  into   the   needs   of   the   people, 

aw  that  if  passion  played  no  small  part  in  the 
life  of  Goa  it  was  to  ignorance  that  many  of  the  evils 
of  the  city  were  due.  Tic  began  then  by  training  the 
children.  A  little  bell  in  hand  he  set  out  through  the 
streets  and  squares  of  the  city,  down  the  alleys  and 

and  at  the  doors  of  the  rich  and  by  the  hovels 
of  the  poor,  and  to  its  sound,  he  gathered  his  audience 
ng  with  that  winning  voice  which  few  could  resist, 
"  Faithful  Christians,  friends  of  Our  Lord  Jesus 
Christ,  send  your  sons  and  daughters,  your  slaves,  men 
and  women  to  the  Christian  Doctrine,  for  the  love  of 

\nc\  the  children  came  in  swarms  drawn  by  the 
witching  music  of  this  Pied  Piper  of  Goa,  in  his  old 
;ng  his  hymns  and  luring  them  all  by  his 
music  and  his  gentleness.  In  the  church  he  taught 
them  the  "  Our  Father,"  the  "  Hail  Mary,"  the  acts 
of  faith,  hope,  charity  and  contrition,  the  Creed,  the 
"  Hail  Holy  Queen,"  told  them  of  Our  Lord  and  His 
Mother,  explained  the  Sacraments,  made  them  under- 
stand the  nature  and  the  punishments  of  sin,  and  above 
all  told  the  poor  little  slave  and  the  outcast,  of  the 
goodness  of  God  and  the  Kingdom  to  which  even  they 
were  the  her  1  the  Doctor  of  the  University  of 

Paris  left  aside  all  the  pretense  and  learning  and 
the  schools  and  spoke  to  his  audience  in 
a  langua  >uld  all  understand,  one  made 

up  of  P(  trange  compound  of  the  dia- 

lect used  by  Hindu  and  Moor,  and  the  "  pidgin " 
patois  of  the  motley  The  pious  John  d'Albu- 

querque  was  delighted  with  the  work  and  ordered  that 
similar  catechetical  instructions  should  he  given  in  all 
the  churches  of  (  or  generous  in  speak- 

ing of  the  ready  response  that  was  made  to  his  efforts, 
writes  of  the  affection  and  good  will  shown  him  in 


40  ST.    FRANCIS    XAVIER 

the  undertaking  and  humbly  blesses  God  for  the  happy 
results  of  his  labors. 

But  if  Xavier  could  be  all  gentleness  and  love  to  the 
poor  children  in  their  ignorance,  he  could  be  stern  to 
the  hardened  sinner.  When  he  entered  the  homes  of 
the  rich  merchant  or  official  or  the  soldier  of  adven- 
ture, and  was  brought  into  contact  with  vices  that 
sapped  the  social  and  religious  life  of  Goa  by  the  very 
foundations,  he  knew  in  his  apostolic  frankness,  how 
with  a  threat  or  a  stinging  word  of  reproach,  to  un- 
mask the  hidden  shame  of  men  who  dared  call  them- 
selves followers  of  the  Cross  and  were  living  like 
corrupt  pagan  rajahs.  Bonds  of  iniquity  long  fastened 
were  broken  and  something  like  honor  and  chastity 
returned  at  last  to  hearths  from  which  they  had  long 
been  exiled.  If  under  the  care  and  the  influence  of 
Xavier  during  his  first  visit  and  his  succeeding  ones, 
Goa  did  not  become  a  new  Thebais,  still  a  moral  trans- 
formation took  place.  Odious  abuses  disappeared,  the 
more  than  Oriental  luxury  and  effeminacy  which  had 
been  rampant  dared  no  longer  parade  themselves  open- 
ly at  least,  family  life  was  healed  at  its  very  source, 
the  Sacraments  won  back  hundreds  who  had  long  neg- 
lected them.  Xavier  humbly  thanked  God  for  his 
success,  and  if  Goa  never  forgot  the  "Santo  Padre,"  he 
in  turn  ever  remained  deeply  attached  to  the  people 
among  whom  he  had  first  cast  the  seed  of  the  Gospel 
in  India.  During  the  four  months  which  Xavier 
passed  at  Goa  after  his  arrival  from  Europe,  he  famil- 
iarized himself  with  the  conditions  and  the  needs  of 
the  field  which  he  was  to  till.  To  Master  Ignatius  he 
wrote  frequently  in  a  series  of  letters  which  though 
devoid  of  art  and  what  bookmen  might  call  literary 
charm,  are  nevertheless  the  revelation  of  a  great  soul 
and  an  admirable  picture  of  the  trials  and  difficulties 
which  he  had  to  face.  In  these  letters  he  told  of  his 
dreams  and  his  plans.     They  were  the  dreams  of  a 


ST.    FRAN  WlKk  41 

giant  11  for  him  but  an  ol 

niche  point  of  vantage  from  which 

he  might  the  held  he  had  to  win.     He  must 

friendly  people  and  its  comparative  shelter 

and  ease.  He  was  not  merely  a  herald,  a  missioner  of 
Christ.  He  was  a  pioneer  of  the  Gospel.  As  superior 
and  captain  of  the  little  hand  of  devoted  men  who 
would  follow  in  his  steps  he  must  set  out  and  blaze 
the  way.  In  a  letter  to  [gnatius  and  his  brethren  at 
the  end  of  September,  he  announced  that  he  was  on 
the  point  of  sailing  southward  to  the  Fishery  Coast 
and  Cape  Comorin.  A  few  days  after  he  set  sail  and 
began  that  apostolic  journey  which  forms  one  of  the 
most  romantic  episodes  in  the  history  of  the  Church. 


CHAPTER  VII 

Storm-Swept  Capes  and  Isles  of  Palm 

(1542-1549) 

WHEN  Xavier  set  out  for  the  Cape  Gomorin 
mission  he  was  in  the  vigor  of  manhood ;  he 
was  in  his  thirty-sixth  year.  It  is  difficult  to 
describe  his  outward  appearance,  for  no  authentic 
portrait  has  been  left  of  him.  From  what  two  of  his 
earlier  biographers,  Tursellini  and  Lucena,  tell  us,  he 
seems  to  have  been  above  the  average  height,  sturdy 
of  build,  in  complexion  fair.  The  features  were  well- 
proportioned,  the  forehead  was  broad,  the  eyes  were 
brown,  the  hair  and  beard  naturally  black,  but  early  in 
his  missionary  career  they  had  turned  white  under 
the  strain  of  his  labors.  He  was  graceful,  but  simple 
and  unaffected  in  all  his  gestures  and  movements,  and 
carried  with  him  an  air  of  authority  and  power  which 
few  could  resist.  By  birth  a  Basque  and  of  noble 
stock,  he  ever  kept  a  certain  dignity  which  blended 
admirably  with  his  priestly  character  and  a  childlike 
humility  which  he  ever  displayed  in  the  most  difficult 
occasions.  He  was  in  spite  of  this  Basque  gravity 
and  the  air  of  a  hidalgo  which  accompanied  him,  one 
of  the  most  human,  one  of  the  gayest  and  brightest  of 
the  Saints.  He  went  about  the  world  winning  souls 
and  kingdoms,  facing  storms  at  sea  and  treachery  on 
land  with  a  song  in  his  heart.  He  had  the  enthusiasm 
of  the  great  discoverers  of  Spain  and  Portugal,  the 
initiative  and  the  daring  of  his  own  Basque  country- 
men who  were  among  the  first  to  pursue  the  whale 
amid  the  tumbling  ice-floes  of  the  Northern  seas,  and 
who  gave  to  civilization  Sebastian  Del  Cario,  the  cap- 
tain who  brought  Magellan's  ships  round  the  world, 
and  Legazpi,  the  first  to  colonize  the  Philippine 
Islands.  When  the  interests  of  God  were  at  stake  he 
could  not  be  moved  from  his  purpose.    His  respectful 

42 


ST.    FRANCIS    XAVIER  43 

but  fearless  letters  to  John  III  of  Portugal,  his  last 
days  in  which  he  had  to  struggle  against  the  jealousy 
and  the  injustices  of  Don  Alvaro  d'Ataide,  the  Gov- 
ernor of  Malacca,  show  of  what  heroic  stuff  he  was 
made.  But  he  was  all  gentleness  to  the  poor,  the  slave, 
the  children,  and  these  loved  him.  He  had  the  art  of 
making  friends.  Among  these  were  Peter  Le  Fevre, 
the  Savoyard  shepherd  lad,  his  hrother  in  Christ, 
Master  Ignatius,  to  whom  he  frequently  wrote  on  his 
knees,  sea  captains,  seamen,  men  of  such  sanctity  as 
Bishop  d'Albuquerque,  and  his  Vicar-General  Michael 
Vaz,  merchant-princes  like  Diogo  Pereira  and  Peter 
Velho.  He  was  quick  to  decide  but  not  hasty,  and  as 
prompt  to  execute.  His  plans  were  vast.  They  em- 
braced the  world.  He  was  the  Alexander  and  the 
Caesar  of  the  missions.  He  had  the  wide  horizons  of 
the  first,  the  lightning  rapidity  in  his  offensive  of  the 
second.  To  these  he  added  that  personal  love  of  the 
Cross  of  Christ  and  of  souls  which  lifts  him  far  above 
the  Greek  hero  and  the  Roman  conqueror  and  makes 
him  almost  the  peer  of  the  Apostle  of  the  Gentiles. 

In  the  autumn  then  of  1542  Xavier  set  sail  for  the 
southern  extremity  of  India.  From  Goa  to  Cape 
Comorin  it  is  more  than  600  miles.  Thirteen  times 
during  the  ten  years  of  his  labors  in  the  East  he 
makes  that  journey,  more  than  8,000  miles,  and  that 
is  but  a  fraction  of  the  immense  distances  he  will 
cover  during  his  short  apostolate.  When  we  see  Fran- 
cis in  Malacca,  1,600  miles  away  from  Ceylon,  where 
he  was  a  short  time  before,  in  the  Moluccas  almost 
two  thousand  miles  further  east,  then  see  him  sailing 
back  and  forth  over  these  dangerous  seas,  finally 
ploring  that  mysterious  land  of  Japan,  then  coming 
back  to  Malacca  and  setting  out  on  a  of  spirit- 

ual discovery  of  the  immense  Chinese  Empire,  we  find 
no  difficulty  in  believing  the  computation  made  by 
some  of  his  biographers  that  this  hero  of  the  Gospel 


44  ST.    FRANCIS    XAVIER 

must  have  traveled  during  the  entire  course  of  his  mis- 
sions a  distance  of  75,000  miles,  or  in  round  numbers,  a 
distance  equivalent  to  a  voyage  three  times  round  the 
globe.  Not  with  all  the  modern  appliances  and  com- 
forts of  our  great  transatlantic  ships,  but  in  the  slow, 
cramped  and  unsanitary  vessels  of  Portugal  or  the 
unseaworthy  craft  of  the  daring  merchants  or  free- 
booters that  thridded  the  waters  of  the  Indian  archi- 
pelago, suffering  from  almost  constant  seasickness,  for 
he  was  a  poor  sailor,  by  reef-bound  coasts  and  shoals 
and  rocks  still  poorly  charted,  under  skies  that  rained 
down  pestilence  and  disease  from  their  leaden  dome. 
Here  is  a  story  of  knightly  daring,  a  romance  of  the 
sea  that  must  kindle  to  admiration  the  heart  of  the 
dullest  and  coldest.  Like  the  great  Apostle  he  could 
truly  say  that  he  had  been  tried  :  "In  journey ings  often, 
in  perils  of  waters,  in  perils  of  robbers,  in  perils  from 
my  own  nation,  in  perils  from  the  Gentiles,  in  perils  in 
the  city,  in  perils  of  the  wilderness,  in  perils  of  the 
sea,  in  perils  from  false  brethren.  In  labor  and  pain- 
fulness,  in  much  watchings,  in  hunger  and  thirst,  in 
fastings  often,  in  cold  and  nakedness." 

Sailing  then  down  the  whole  length  of  the  Malabar 
coast,  and  that  of  Travancore,  Xavier  passed  the  Sal- 
sette  Islands,  Mangalore,  then  Calicut  and  Cochin  and 
landed  probably  close  to  the  low  and  sandy  shores  of 
Cape  Comorin  the  extreme  southern  point  of  India. 
He  then  turned  northeast  and  by  slow  and  painful 
journeys  on  foot  went  the  whole  length  of  the  Fishery 
Coast  until  he  reached  Tuticorin,  which  he  was  to 
make  his  headquarters.  At  Goa  the  Saint  had  of 
course  come  in  contact  with  the  paganism  of  India. 
m  Now  he  was  to  see  it  here  in  some  of  its  most  re- 
\pulsive  forms. 

On  that  coast  that  turns  northeast  from  Cape 
Comorin  dwelt  the  Paravas  or  Paravers.  They  were 
expert  pearl  divers  and  renowned  throughout  the  East. 


FRANCIS    XAVIER  45 

They  were  a  rather  hardy  and  simple  people  and  at  one 
time  had  d  some  tincture  of  Christianity,  but 

had  relapsed  from  want  of  priests  into  their  former 
paganism.  Their  caste  was  not  of  the  humblest  and 
they  were  laborious  and  thrifty.  But  the  absurdities 
and  the  degradations  of  Hindu  mythology  were  going 
to  destroy  them  entirely,  'if  some  remedy  were  not 
brought  to  their  sad  condition.  For  whatever  may  be 
alleged  of  the  higher  teaching  and  hidden  doctrines  of 
Hinduism,  even  Brahmanism,  the  popular  forms  of 
re  repulsive,  and  when  not  repulsive,  gro- 
tesque. Vishnu  with  his  never-ending  transformations 
into  the  foulest  shapes,  Shiva  with  his  shameless 
passions,  Kali  the  godcJess  that  clamored  for  human 
sacrifices,  the  many-headed  and  many-armed  gods  and 
goddesses  whose  hideous  forms  grinned  from  the  tem- 
ples and  altars  where  the  most  degrading  rites 
practised,  could  only  terrify  and  degrade  the  people 
among  whom  they  were  found.  The  tyrannies  of  caste 
separating  men  from  one  another  as  with  a  wall  of 
iron,  added  to  spiritual  blindness  a  social  degradation 
which  made  them  almost  forget  that  they  were  men. 
The  condition  of  woman  was  beyond  words  to  de- 
intolerable;  that  of  the  widow  especially,  for- 
len  to  marry  a  second  time,  no  matter  what  her  age 
at  her  husband's  death,  was  one  described  by  com- 
petent authors  as  a  living  hell.    Frequently  the  widow, 

daily  in  the  u  Bung  herself  as  a  doomed 

victim  on  the  funeral  pyre  of  her  husband.  It  is  not 
too  much  to  say  that  in  that  land  of  darkness  and 
death  Satan  ruled  as  master.  He  had  his  worshipers 
and  his  rites.  The  Paravas  among  whom  Francis 
came  to  work  had  perhaps  not  all  these  vices,  for  they 

l  to  have  reached  a  somewhat  higher  level  than 
their  nei.  but  their  nei  rs,  were 

known  to  be  devil-worshipr 

ick    and    forth    from    Tuticorin.   now    a    town    of 


46  ST.    FRANCIS    XAVIER 

30,000  inhabitants  and  an  important  point  of  com- 
munication between  India  and  Ceylon,  but  in  the  days 
of  our  missionary,  a  mere  collection  of  the  huts  of 
four  or  five  thousand  pearl  fishers,  Xavier  made  his 
way  to  reach  the  Paravas  scattered  up  and  down  the 
coast.  From  the  life  and  the  letters  of  the  apostle  it 
would  be  easy  to  compile  a  missionary  manual  of  the 
qualities  which  a  herald  of  the  Gospel  should  possess. 
Xavier  wanted  him  fearless  in  the  presence  of  evil 
and  the  evil-doer,  independent  of  the  views  and  preju- 
dices of  the  world  and  the  great,  filled  with  zeal  for 
the  salvation  of  souls  redeemed  by  the  Blood  of  Christ, 
prudent  in  his  dealings  with  secular  and  religious 
authorities,  for  which  he  always  showed  the  greatest 
reverence,  prudent  also  in  the  lessons  and  the  duties 
to  be  imposed  on  recent  converts  and  men  and  women 
living  in  the  world.  He  bade  a  group  of  sailors  who 
wished  to  stop  a  game  of  cards  when  they  saw  the 
"  Santo  Padre "  approaching,  to  keep  on,  for  they 
were  not,  he  said,  obliged  to  live  like  monks.  He 
insisted  on  obedience,  for  a  missionary,  in  order  to 
instil  respect  of  authority  in  others,  must  himself  give 
the  example  of  submission;  on  mortification  and  abne- 
gation and  a  holy  contempt  for  the  comforts  of  life, 
for  the  missionary  was  a  soldier  and  must  be  of  sterner 
mold. 

In  drawing  up  this  picture  Xaxier  was  painting  his 
own  character,  such  as  it  was  manifesting  itself  at 
Tuticorin  and  along  the  Fishery  Coast,  such  as  it  was 
soon  to  be  at  Travancore.  Practical  as  always,  the 
Saint  set  himself  to  learn  the  language  of  the  tribes 
with  whom  he  was  dealing.  It  is  historically  impos- 
sible to  deny  that  he  enjoyed  the  gift  of  tongues,  in 
various  forms.  In  the  Bull  of  Canonization  of  the 
Saint  issued  in  T623  by  Pope  Urban  VIII,  the  fact  is 
solemnly  affirmed.  And  the  declaration  was  made  after 
most   minute  investigations,   which  took  place  either 


ST.    FRANCIS    XAVIER  47 

then  or  at  the  two  previous  processes  of  beatification. 
Thus  Gaspanl  Secheira  Abreu  swore  that  he  had 
heard  Francis  preaching  in  Japan  in  Portuguese  and 
that  the  Japanese  understood  him.  In  1556  at  trie 
first  process  Antonio  Pereira,  a  Portuguese  gentleman, 
testified  that  no  matter  where  the  Santo  Padre 
wont,  he  needed  only  a  few  days  in  order  to  learn  the 
language.  This  happened,  he  says,  on  the  Malabar 
coast,  at  Malacca  and  in  Japan.  Pereira  knew  whereof 
he  spoke,  for  he  was  acquainted  with  the  tongues  there 
in  use  and  affirmed  that  he  had  spoken  to  Francis  in 
Malay.  But  these  miracles  were  probably  not  so 
numerous  as  some  of  the  biographers  of  the  Saint 
have  made  them.  They  are  not  at  all  necessary  to  his 
tity,  which  came  not  from  these  external  graces 
which  God  gives  and  withholds  at  pleasure,  but  from 
his  splendid  correspondence  with  God's  grace.  But  it 
would  be  uncritical  and  un-Catholic  to  deny  them. 
They  are  too  well  supported  and  we  can  rely  on  the 
solemn  affirmation  of  Gregory  XV,  who,  after  all, 
is  but  the  interpreter  of  the  facts  which  were  laid 
before  him  and  decided  on  their  merits,  as  critically 
and  as  judiciously,  as  would  be  done  in  any  tribunal 
or  court  of  justice  in  the  world.  Just  as  the  Bull  of 
Urban  VIII  attributes  to  Francis  the  gift  of  tongues, 
so  it  affirms,  on  the  oath  of  contemporaries,  that  sev- 
eral times,  Xavier  by  the  power  of  God,  who  thus 
wished  to  give  prestige  to  the  work  of  his  servant, 
called  the  dead  back  to  II: 

In  spite  of  his  gift  of  miracles  and  of  the  gift  of 
tongues,  Xa\  not  think  himself  dispensed  from 

the  duty  of  personal  labor  and  endeavor  in  his  work. 
While  among  the  Paravas,  he  learned  Tamil,  gathered 
a  few  helpers  around  him  and  translated  into  Tamil 
an  abridgment  of  Christian  doctrine  and  a  few  in- 
structions for  the  needs  of  his  people.  Among  them 
the  Santo  Padre  soon  became  something  like  a  superior 


48  ST.    FRANCIS    XAVIER 

being.  With  his  old  methods  of  catechizing,  his  famil- 
iar instructions,  his  hold  on  the  children,  he  began  to 
work  marvels.  If  the  picture  his  early  biographers 
draw  of  his  labors  be  true,  he  must  have  formed  the 
villages  of  the  pearl  fishers  into  something  like  a  little 
republic,  well-ordered,  peaceful  and  happy.  Their 
social  organization  was  of  the  most  primitive.  He 
dealt  with  them  as  with  good-natured  children,  had 
them  policed  by  bailiffs  of  his  own  choosing,  ap- 
pointed catechists,  settled  family  troubles,  did  not  im- 
pose upon  them  unnecessary  burdens,  but  saw  to  it 
that  the  fundamental  truths  of  Christianity  were 
understood  and  that  they  lived  in  accordance  with  the 
promises  of  their  Baptism. 

In  September,  1542,  Xavier  had  left  Goa.  The 
next  month  found  him  at  Tuticorin,  but  only  as  a 
surveyor  or  a  general  looking  out  for  some  strategic 
point  for  the  future  campaign.  He  spends  a  little 
over  a  year  there.  He  reminds  us  of  the  generals  of 
the  great  war  who  one  day  are  up  in  Flanders, 
the  next  on  the  heights  of  the  Meuse,  or  the  crests  of 
Verdun,  wherever  the  crisis  of  the  flaming  battle-line 
calls  them.  He  is  soon  back  at  general  headquarters 
at  Goa,  where  he  finds  the  College  of  the  Holy  Faith, 
in  which  he  had  left  his  heart,  for  it  was  training  the 
missionaries  of  the  future,  well  attended  and  flourish- 
ing. In  the  January  of  1544  he  is  on  his  way  south 
again  at  Cochin,  and  the  following  month  he  is  once 
more  laboring  among  his  beloved  Paravas.  It  seems 
now  almost  impossible  to  follow  the  Saint.  He  is  the 
Napoleon  of  the  missions,  and  the  man  of  Austerlitz, 
of  Marengo  and  the  great  campaigns  of  Italy,  is  not 
more  rapid  and  sure  in  his  movements  than  Xavier 
in  his  spiritual  campaign.  You  can  take  a  map  of 
southern  India,  draw  a  line  from  Cochin  on  the  west- 
ern coast,  down  past  the  strands  of  Travancore,  around 
Cape   Comorin,   up   the   Fishery   Coast   to   Tuticorin, 


FRAN  WIEB  49 

and  say:  Here  at  Punicale  and  Manapar,  at  Livare, 
at  Yirandapatanao,  at  Alendale  and  Tritchendur, 
ier  preached  and  prayed  and  wrought  for  souls. 
While  working  among  the  Paravas  around  Cape 
Comorin  in  the  summer  of  1544  Xavier  showed  that 
he  was  not  only  willing  to  work  and  pray  for  his 
people,  but,  if  need  be,  he  would,  like  the  Good 
Shepherd,  have  laid  down  his  life  for  his  flock.  The 
King  of  Travancore  on  the  southwestern  coast  of  the 
peninsula,  was  at  war  with  the  neighboring  prince- 
lings of  Madura  to  the  north.  At  their  service  the 
Lords  of  Madura  had  a  mercenary  cavalry  called  the 
Yadagars,  or  as  we  find  the  name  in  the  older  biog- 
raphers, the  Badages.  They  were  a  warlike  race, 
fierce  of  aspect,  reckless  and  cruel.  Mounted  on  swift 
Arab  horses  they  carried  desolation  and  terror  down 
to  the  very  Cape.  In  the  midst  of  the  panic  which  at 
their  approach  had  spread  through  every  hamlet  of 
the  Paravas,  Xavier  had  been  the  guide  and  the  con- 
soler of  his  flock.  He  had  been  journeying  north. 
As  soon  as  he  heard  of  the  inroad,  with  his  usual 
decision,  he  turned  southward  to  meet  the  danger. 
When  the  Badages  swept  upon  the  defenseless  hamlet 
which  they  had  marked  out  for  pillage  and  destruction, 
Xavier  on  beholding  the  spears  and  the  scimitars  of 
the  marauders,  knelt  for  a  moment  in  prayer,  then, 
crucifix  in  hand,  calmly  went  forth  to  meet  them.  The 
lonely  figure,  the  authority  of  the  gesture  and  the 
command  which  bade  them  halt,  the  power  stamped 
on  his  face,  the  brief  but  majestic  words  he  spoke, 
something  more  than  earthly  power  that  beamed  from 
his  whole  person,  inspired  a  sudden  terror  into  the 
hearts  of  the  wild  tribesmen  of  the  North.  They 
wheeled   their  horses  in   their  tr; 

ication  in  e6i6,  three 

witnesses  testified  to  the  fact.     And  it  1  sur- 

equent   legends  invested  the  incident 


50  ST.    FRANCIS    XAVIER 

with  romantic  glamour  and  supernatural  details.  But  a 
great  fact  long  remained  in  the  memories  and  the 
heart  of  the  Paravas :  the  Santo  Padre  had  saved  them 
from  the  fierce  Vadagars  and  to  do  so  had  risked  his 
own  life.  It  was  the  history  of  the  Church  renewing 
on  the  shores  of  India  the  wonders  that  had  once 
taken  place  on  the  banks  of  the  Mincio,  when  Pope 
Leo  went  forth  from  Rome  to  face  Attila  and  his  Huns 
and  turned  them  from  the  plunder  and  the  ruin  of 
the  Eternal  City. 

Can  we  wonder  then  that  the  Rajah  of  Travancore, 
to  whose  ears  the  news  of  the  heroism  of  the  apostle 
must  have  been  speedily  carried,  soon  welcomed  him 
to  his  dominions?  We  find  Xavier  there  at  the  end 
of  1544.  And  though  Brahmanism  exercised  an  in- 
fluence in  Travancore  scarcely  equaled  in  the  whole 
of  India,  still  Xavier  found  that  coast,  for  which  he 
ever  kept  the  most  tender  regard,  one  of  the  most 
fertile  fields  cultivated  by  him.  In  one  month,  he 
tells  us,  he  baptized  as  many  as  10,000  persons.  The 
Licentiate,  John  Vaz,  who  accompanied  him  on  his 
journey,  writes  that  Francis  completely  gained  the 
heart  of  the  Rajah,  who  gave  his  people  full  permission 
to  embrace  Christianitv,  and  ordered  them  to  obey  the 
"  Balea  Padre,"  the  "  Great  Father,"  the  "  King's 
Brother  "  as  they  would  himself,  that  Francis  built 
as  many  as  forty-four  or  forty-five  churches  along  the 
coast,  and  that  often  in  that  flat  countryside,  followed 
by  as  many  as  6,000  people,  the  missionary  would 
climb  a  tree  and  preach  to  them.  God  was  blessing 
his  servant's  labors. 

While  Francis  was  reproducing  by  his  zeal  the 
wonders  of  the  career  of  the  Apostle  of  the  Gentiles, 
the  Christians  of  the  Island  of  Manar  on  the  northern 
shores  of  Ceylon  were  glorifying  the  Church  by  the 
heroism  of  their  martyrs.  The  Manarese  had  heard 
of  his  preaching  among  the  Paravas  and  had  begged 


ST.    FRANCIS    XAVIER  51 

him    to  ch    them   the    religion   of   Christ. 

sent  them  a 
nati\  •   who,  by   following  the  methods  of  his 

master,    and    helped  ,    saw    his    labors 

with  abundant  fruits.     Here 

ee  emerging  the  dark  and  sii 
jigure  of  one  of  those  petty  tyrants  of  the 
common  in  Indian  history,  the  Rajah  of  Jafnapatam, 
a  small  principality  on  the  northern  shores  of  Ceylon. 
The  rajah  was  shifty,  cruel  and  treacherous.  Murder 
had  given  him  the  throne,  treachery,  double-dealing 
with  his  subjects  and  the  Portuguese,  kept  the  scepter 
in  his  hands.  lie  could  flatter  the  Christians  if  the 
power  and  the  guns  of  Portugal  were  behind  them. 
He  hated  them  weak  or  strong.  For  a  moment  he 
thought  the  Manarese  out  of  reach  of  the  protecting 
arm  of  the  Governor  of  India.  He  invaded  their 
peaceful  villages,  offered  them  life  at  the  price  of 
apostasy  from  the  Faith  into  which  they  bad  just  been 
baptized.  They  refused  and  the  newly-born  Church 
saw  several  martyrs  added  to  the  roll-call  of  her 
heroes.  But  a  few  months  before,  the  men,  the  chil- 
dren, the  women  who  laid  down  their  lives  for  that 
Faith  which  they  had  learnt  only  indirectly  from  the 
Santo  Padre,  had  never  heard  of  the  Gospel  or  its 
lessons:  now  they  were  its  martyrs.  Their  story 
makes  one  of  the  most  beautiful  in  the  history  of  the 
Church;  in  Xavier's  crown,  it  forms  one  of  the 
brightest  gems.  But  Xavier  could  not  stand  idly  by 
and  see  the  Manarese  exterminated  by  the  Cingalese 
Dt  So  we  find  him  at  Negapatam  on  the  eastern 
-  watching  the  course  of  events  in  Manar  and  in 
Jafnapatam,  for  the  Portuguese  were  now  endeavor- 
ing to  protect  the  victims  of  the  rajah's  fury,  and 
were  supporting  the  claims  of  another  ruler  to  the 
throne  of  the  tyrant.  That  Xavier  approved  and  sup- 
ported   this    armed    intervention,    there    can   be   little 


52  ST.    FRANCIS    XAVIER 

doubt.  There  can  be  just  as  little  doubt  that  he  was 
perfectly  justified  in  doing  so.  He  was  championing 
the  rights  of  the  Rajah's  subjects  and  trying  to  save 
the  islanders  from  destruction.  Those  who  have  pre- 
tended to  see  in  his  acts  throughout  the  tragedy  noth- 
ing but  a  piece  of  political  trickery  by  which  he  tried 
to  further  the  temporal  sway  of  the  Portuguese  Gov-  , 
eminent,  little  understand  the  man  and  the  high  ideals 
that  actuated  him.  He  tried  to  save  Manar  by  the 
only  means  available,  an  appeal  to  the  Portuguese 
guns.  If  the  attempt  ultimately  failed  through  the 
cupidity  and  trickery  of  the  Portuguese  officials  them- 
selves, Xavier  cannot  be  blamed.  The  failure  fully  to 
throw  open  the  gates  of  Ceylon  to  the  heralds  of  the 
Gospel  was  nevertheless  a  blow  to  the  heart  of  the 
Apostle.  But  God  was  trying  His  faithful  servant. 
Success  so  far  had  followed  in  his  steps.  He  must 
now  feel  that  God  after  all  is  the  Master,  and  that 
though  the  husbandman  may  toil  and  water  the  field, 
it  is  God  who  gives  the  increase.  Xavier  had  too  well 
learnt  the  lesson  in  his  long  hours  of  prayer ;  he 
humbled  himself  under  the  cruel  disappointment.  He 
found  the  remedy  in  solitude  and  prayer. 

North  of  Negapatam  at  a  short  distance  was  the 
little  town  of  San  Thome  de  Meliapor,  where,  legend 
said,  rested  the  hallowed  remains  of  the  first 
Apostle  of  the  Indies,  St.  Thomas.  There  was  a 
priest,  a  church,  a  fervent  community  of  Christians 
there.  In  the  spring  of  1545  Francis  went  for  what 
may  be  termed  his  only  period  of  comparative  rest, 
to  the  little  colony.  He  spent  four  peaceful  months 
there,  peaceful  in  spite  of  the  trials  he  experienced, 
for  he  was  greatly  tempted,  we  know,  from  his  own 
words ;  tempted,  no  doubt,  by  discouragement  and 
by  that  disillusionment  which  comes  to  all  great  men 
when  they  see  their  noblest  efforts  thwarted,  their 
most  painful  sacrifices  for  the  good  of  others  ren- 


ST.    FRANCIS    XAVIEK 

and  the  coward 

oi  nun.  er.    It  loved  him. 

him.     It  was  the  one  lit- 
I  murmuring  waters  and  cooling 
shade  in  the  midst  of  the  burning  wastes  he  had  still 
all  the  dangers  and  trials  which  he  had 
alre.'i  I.     When  he  left   it,  he  blessed  the  hos- 

le  people  and  their  hospitable  homes,  and  fore- 
told their  future  greatness.  The  words  of  the 
Santo  Padre  were  fulfilled  to  the  letter.  Only  twenty- 
s  after,  San  Thome  was  one  of  the  most  flour- 
ishing cities  on  Portugal's  highways  of  the  sea,  and 
its  people  one  of  the  richest  and  happiest. 

And  where  was  the  indefatigable  missionary  going 
now  ?  He  had  seen  the  gates  of  Ceylon  closed  against 
him.  The  hand  of  God  now  opened  still  wider  the 
portals  of  the  East.  He  had  sailed  past  many  a 
storm-swept  cape  and  rocky  headland.  He  was  now 
on  his  wa\  to  Malacca  and  the  Spice  Islands. 

The  Moluccas  and   Spice  Islands  form  that  group 
of  islands  lying  on  both  sides  of  the  equator  between 
the  Celebes  and  New  Guinea  on  the  south  and  the 
Philippines  and  the  Timor  Archipelago  on  the  north. 
Their  extent  in  area  is  about   22,000  square  miles, 
produced  the  pepper  and  nutmeg  trees,  and  the 
far-famed  spices  which  give  them  their  name.     The 
two  years  and  a  half  which  were  spent  by  Xavier  in 
this  labyrinth  of  sea  and  land  wrere  among  the  most 
astounding,  perhaps,  of  his  life.     Never  did  his  dar- 
ing, his  con  in  God,  his  zeal  for  the  sou1 
brethren,  his  charity,  his  influence  on  the  mind 
Hers  and  children  and  sinners,  his 
wini  ess   charm    show    themselves    in    a 
whiter  and  purer  light.     At  the  end  of  these  two 

vs  Father  Coleridge  in  hi 
Letters  of  St.  Francis  Xavier  "  : 


54  ST.    FRANCIS    XAVIER 

His  name  filled  the  whole  Eastern  Archipelago  as  that  uf  a 
great  saint  and  apostle  of  God,  gifted  with  the  most  mar- 
velous miraculous  powers,  and  ...  it  seemed  only  nat- 
ural to  look  forward  for  him  to  still  grander  achievements. 
In  those  days  of  ever  fresh  energy  and  wonder,  when  islands 
and  countries,  which  had  before  loomed  like  shadows  upon 
the  bordering  mist  between  the  realms  of  knowledge  and 
imagination,  were  daily  coming  forth  into  the  light,  in  all  their 
fair  beauty  and  mythical  richness,  as  the  mariners  and  mer- 
chants of  Portugal  and  Spain  pushed  their  venturesome  prows 
further  and  further  into  a  mysterious  and  seemingly  limitless 
world,  a  man  had  at  last  appeared  in  the  East  who  would  go 
for  the  sake  of  the  Gospel  of  Jesus  Christ,  wherever  he  could 
find  a  ship  to  take  him,  who  feared  nothing  but  that  he  might 
himself  begin  to  fear,  and  who  seemed  to  wield  an  imperial 
sway  alike  over  the  powers  of  nature  and  the  hearts  of  his 
fellowmen. 

Xavier  reached  Malacca  at  the  end  of  September. 
1545.  Malacca,  now  superseded  in  importance  by 
Singapore,  was  then  at  the  height  of  its  commercial 
and  military  importance.  Thirty  years  before,  it  had 
been  conquered  by  the  Portuguese,  who  had  strongly 
fortified  it.  It  was  the  port  of  Siam  and  Pegu,  the 
meeting  place  and  the  exchange  mart  for  the  two 
great  divisions  of  the  Eastern  world,  Arabia,  Persia 
and  India  on  the  one  hand ;  China,  Japan,  the  Mo- 
luccas and  the  Philippines  on  {he  other.  It  was  more 
cosmopolitan  than  Goa ;  had,  if  anything,  statelier 
buildings.  Contemporary  writers  of  Francis  were  loud 
in  their  praise  of  its  soft  but  luxurious  climate,  the 
happy  mixture  of  sea  mists  and  fresh  breezes  which 
temper  the  naturally  sultry  atmosphere,  and  even 
under  torrid  skies,  "  keep  the  land  clothed  with  the 
verdure  of  perpetual  spring."  The  vices  which  Fran- 
cis found  at  Goa  he  met  with  again  at  Malacca,  but 
intensified,   if   possible,   by   still    greater   temptations. 


ST.    FRANCIS    XAVIER  55 

But  it  was  Portuguese  through  and  through,  and  with 
the  faith  of  a  still  deeply  religious  people,  it  gave  him 
a  royal  welcome.  His  fame  had  sped  across  the 
Gulf  of  Bengal  and  the  whole  town  had  gathered  at 

locks  when  the  ship  that  bore  him  dropped  anchor. 

hers  held  up  their  babies  in  their  arms  that  he 
might  bless  them,  and  the  process  of  beatification  of 
16 1 6  states  that,  although  the  Saint  had  never  seen  the 
children,  he  called  them  all  by  their  correct  names 
when  he  laid  his  hand  upon  their  heads.  One  of  the 
Saint's  first  duties  was  to  pay  his  respects  to  the 
"  captain  "  or  commandant  of  the  town,  a  soldier  tried, 
Garcia  de  Sa,  and  to  expose  to  him  the  object  he 
had  in  view,  the  journey  to  the  distant  Moluccas.  The 
commandant  had  anticipated  to  some  extent  his  de- 
sires and  had  dispatched  a  ship  to  Celebes  with  a 
priest  and  several  Portuguese  laymen  to  help  in  the 
conversion  of  the  natives. 

Francis  was  not  to  remain  long  at  Malacca.  But 
he  immediately  began  the  spiritual  regeneration  of 
the  city.  It  needed  it  as  badly  as  Goa.  It  is  unneces- 
sary to  describe  either  its  Oriental  vices  or  the  means 
which  the  Saint  used  to  conquer  them.  Never  did 
he  realize  so  much  the  need  of  prayer  and  penance  as 
now.  There  were  vices  in  this  emporium  of  the  East 
which  only  fasting  and  prayer  could  down.  To  win 
the  favor  of  Heaven  he  fasted  long  and  rigorously, 
at  one  time  spending  two  days  without  eating.  The 
sultry  nights  he  spent  in  prayer.  The  brothers  Pereira 
watched  him  by  night  and  afterwards  stated  that  they 
1  him  on  his  knees  before  his  crucifix,  his 
'ied  in  tears  and  his  face  burning  like  that 
of  a  sernph  with  a  light  of  another  world.  The  altar, 
the  confessional,  the  bedside  of  the  sick,  the  bar- 
racks of  the  soldiers,  the  prisons,  the  houses  behind 
whose  walls  there  were  so  many  tragedies  of  sin  and 
misery,  these  were  the  scenes  of  his  labors  -by  day. 


56  ST.    FRANCIS    XAVIER 

If  he  did  not  entirely  transform  the  city  into  the  pat- 
tern of  a  Christian  commonwealth,  he  greatly  im- 
proved it.  But  there  were  unfortunately,  even  among 
those  who  were  the  appointed  guardians  of  the  flock, 
wolves  in  sheep's  clothing.  Such  men  can  thwart  or 
undo  the  work  and  the  labors  even  of  a  giant  like 
Xavier.  But  they  did  not  do  so  in  vain.  In  some  mys- 
terious way  God  inflicted  the  most  signal  punishment 
on  those  who  opposed  His  Saint,  and  their  punish- 
ment became  a  warning  and  a  household  tale  through- 
out the  East. 

But  Malacca  was  not  then  to  detain  him  long.  The 
Isles  of  the  Sea  were  calling  for  the  man  of  God. 
It  is  almost  impossible  to  follow  him  now.  On  New 
Year's  day,  1546,  he  sailed  for  Amboina,  just  west  of 
New  Guinea.  It  is  2000  miles  from  Malacca  and 
the  voyage  was  to  last  a  month  and  a  half.  He  was 
to  sail  almost  uncharted  lanes  of  commerce,  through 
treacherous  channels  and  by  sunken  reefs,  facing  the 
sudden  storms,  the  torrid  heat  of  these  southern  seas, 
his  companions  rude  seamen  or  pagan  Lascars,  his 
food  the  coarsest  of  the  fare  of  the  crew,  exposed 
to  the  attacks  of  Chinese  and  Malay  pirates,  at  the 
mercy  of  his  guides.  He  lands  on  desolate  shores, 
where  he  finds  at  times  signs  of  the  Faith  brought  by 
the  Portuguese  traders,  but  for  the  most  part  among 
the  traders  and  soldiers  and  seamen  only  a  memory  of 
the  religion  they  professed,  and  among  the  natives,  a 
brood  of  Papuan  and  Malay  blood,  all  the  vices  of 
the  East.  Thrice  is  he  shipwrecked.  He  finds  another 
bark  and  continues  his  journey.  Neither  sickness, 
treachery,  neither  the  heat  nor  the  fevers  of  the  reek- 
ing marshlands  or  the  jungle  can  turn  him  back.  As 
he  clamored  for  souls,  so  by  the  seashore  after  the 
day's  toil,  undaunted  and  daring,  he  sends  forth  his 
sublimely  defiant  challenge  to  God:     "Mas,  Mass,": 


ST.    FRANCIS    XAVIER  57 

More,  Lord,  in*  il,  more  labor,  more 

fori; 

He  rid  enough  at  Amboina,  he  will  in- 

to fill  out  the  n  in  the  northern  Moluccas  at 

.    Tidor,    Moretai,   Riao,   the    Islands   of   the 
The  work  was  enough  to  daunt  a  giant.     The 
land  itself  offered  images  of  horror  that  might 
r  the  heart  of  the  bravest;  the  pirates  and  wreck- 
that  lurked  in  every  cove,  the  volcanoes  almost 
antly  in  eruption,  the  mud-geysers  and  fountains, 
iir  thick  with  the  whirling  ashes  and  surcharged 
with    volcanic    vapors,    the    tangled    darkness    of   the 
jungle,   creeping  with    deadly   reptiles  and  beasts  of 
prey,  the  vices  of  settlers  and  natives  alike  made  the 
place  resemble  a  living  hell.     But  what  mattered  it? 
There  were  souls  redeemed  by  the  Blood  of  Christ 
living  in  darkness  and  in  sin.    Xavier  must  save  them, 
he  must  bring  them  the  good  tidings.     He  laughed  at 
the  storms  and  the  shipwreck,  at  the  pirate  and  the 
beast  of  the  jungle;  he  recked  not  of  lurking  fever 
and  imminent  death.     He  tells  us  that  he  was  never 
happier  than  on  the  journey  to  the   Moluccas.     He 
would  even  change  their  name  and  said  they  should  be 
called  the  Islands  of  Hope  in  God.     When  in  April, 
-,  he  left  Maluco  to  return  to  Malacca,  the  scene 
that  took  place  at  the  dock  reminds  us  of  that  scene 
in  the  Acts  of  the  Apostles  in  which  St.   Paul  bade 
farewell  to  the  people  of  Ephesus,  who  went  down 
to  the  ship  with  him  and  "fell  upon  his  neck  and  ki 
him,  being  grieved  most  of  all  for  the  word  that  he 
that  they  should  see  his  face  no  more."     To 
avoid  the  parting  scene  with  the  people  he  so  tenderly 
love<  r   tried   to   slip   away    during  the   night. 

In   vain,   even  then  the  harbor  and  the  streets  \ 
crowded  with  his  children,  who  tried  to  hold  him  back. 
They  hung  around  him,  clung  to  his  tried  to 

bar   the   way.      The    slav<  the    sinners 


58  ST.    FRANCIS   XAVlSR 

whom  he  had  converted  to  God  were  weeping  bitterly. 
The  Saint  blessed  them,  asking  them  to  be  faithful 
to  their  promises,  solemnly  made  to  him;  asking  the 
priests  to  continue  the  catechism  he  had  introduced. 
The  heart  of  Xavier  could  not  but  feel  the  parting. 
But  God  was  calling.  He  had  never  faltered  at  His 
summons.  He  went  aboard  and  a  few  moments  after 
he  was  on  his  way  to  Malacca.  It  was  midsummer 
when  he  reached  the  term  of  his  long  journey.  Ma- 
lacca needed  him,  for  it  was  soon  after  attacked  by 
the  pirates  of  Acheen.  From  the  little  Portuguese 
squadron  which  had  put  to  sea  no  tidings  had  been 
heard  for  some  time.  On  December  4,  Francis,  who 
was  preaching  to  a  vast  throng,  suddenly  stopped  in 
his  sermon,  and  his  whole  person  transformed,  his  eyes 
lit  with  a  strange  fire  and  seeming  to  follow  the  inci- 
dents of  a  drama,  exclaimed  that  the  Portuguese 
ships  had  met  the  enemy  and  were  victorious  and 
that  the  fleet  would  soon  return.  A  few  days  after, 
the  ships  anchored  off  shore,  bearing  the  scars  of  bat- 
tle, but  also  flying  the  flags  of  victory.  Minute 
investigations  soon  brought  out  the  fact  that  the  vic- 
tory had  taken  place  at  the  very  moment  when  Francis 
had  announced  it  from  the  pulpit.  The  prophecy  and 
its  startling  fulfilment  soon  spread  over  the  East, 
adding  still  more,  if  that  were  possible,  to  the  fame  of 
the  Saint. 

In  the  year  and  a  half  that  follows  we  find  the  in- 
defatigable missionary  now  at  Cochin,  then  among 
his  beloved  Paravas  of  the  Fishery  Coast,  penetrat- 
ing into  the  interior  of  the  Island  of  Ceylon  to  en- 
deavor to  bring  the  Rajah  of  Kandy  to  embrace  the 
Faith ;  at  Goa,  at  Bacaim,  in  the  north,  where  he  con- 
fers with  the  governor,  the  gallant  John  de  Castro, 
on  the  projects  he  entertained  for  the  conversion  of 
the  Cingalese.  On  June  6,  1548,  he  knelt  at  the  death- 
bed of  this  dauntless  fighter  and  irreproachable  ad- 


ST.    FRANCIS    XAVIER  59 

ministrator,  one  of  the  finest  figures   in  the  history 

Portuguese  India.     John  de  Castro  had  won  im- 

turels  at  the  siege  of  Diu,  and  the  victory 

which  only  a  few  months  before,  December,  1547,  he 

ver  the  Sultan  of  Bidjapour,  at  the  very 

1,   had  carried  his  name  to  the  remotest 

islet  of  the  Indian  seas. 

John  de  Castro  was  not  only  a  scholar,  a  scientist, 
an  explorer,  a  great  soldier,  an  incorruptible  judge; 
he  had  the  soul  of  a  crusader,  the  faith  and  piety  of 
a  true  follower  of  the  Cross.  He  had  the  noblest 
views  for  the  glory  of  Portugal  and  the  good  of  hu- 
manity in  the  East.  But  if  we  can  believe  the  his- 
torian of  Portuguese  India,  Faria  y  Sousa,  though 
not  yet  fifty,  he  died  broken-hearted  because  the  mal- 
ice and  treachery  of  sordid  souls  would  not  let  him 
apply  the  remedies  to  the  evils  which  he  saw  were  ruin- 
ing the  colonies.  The  ill-success  of  the  Portuguese  ex- 
pedition sent  to  secure  a  hold  on  Aden,  the  key  to 
Egypt  and  the  Red  Sea,  hastened  the  old  soldier's  end. 
A  few  months  before  his  death,  he  had  received  from 
Portugal  his  letters  patent  as  Viceroy.  Only  three 
governors  before  him  had  been  given  such  honors. 
Before  he  died,  John  de  Castro  summoned  the  Bishop 
of  Goa,  the  civil  authorities,  the  Franciscan,  Fray 
Antonio  de  Casal,  and  Father  Master  Francis.  Feel- 
ing that  earth  and  its  honors  were  flitting  away,  and 
that  he  was  going  to  appear  before  the  King  of  Kings, 
in  whose  presence  his  honors  would  be  of  little  avail, 
he  renounced  his  title  of  Viceroy.  Then  on  the  Holy 
Gospels  he  solemnly  swore  that  he  had  never  misap- 
propriated the  funds  of  the  State,  never  received 
presents  while  in  office,  and  that  because  his  troops 
and  officials  had  not  been  paid  in  time  he  had  spent  his 
own  personal  fortune  in  the  service  of  the  King.  He 
added  that  he  was  so  poor  that  he  could  not  pay  for 
the  food  ordered  him  by  the  doctors.    He  then  forgot 


60  ST.    FRANCIS    XAVIER 

the  world,  and,  thinking  only  of  his  soul  and  of  God, 
prepared  for  eternity.  He  died  in  the  arms  of  Francis. 
He  was  only  forty-eight  years  old.  He  was  buried  in 
the  Franciscan  Church,  wrapped  in  his  tertiary's  habit, 
under  which  could  be  seen  the  white  folds  of  the 
mantle  of  the  Knights  of  the  Order  of  Christ.  When 
they  made  the  inventory  of  his  worldly  goods,  they 
found  only  three  coins  of  insignificant  value,  a  dis- 
cipline stained  with  his  blood  and  a  bit  of  that  mus- 
tache which  at  the  siege  of  Diu  he  had  sent  as  security 
to  the  bankers  of  Goa  for  the  funds  he  needed  and 
which  were  offered  without  hesitation.  John  de  Castro 
was  of  epic  proportions.  It  is  not  surprising  that  his 
countryman,  Luis  de  Camoens,  should  have  called 
him  "  Castro  the  Strong  "  and  immortalized  his  name 
in  his  "  Lusiads." 

In  May,  1549,  Xavier  was  again  at  Malacca.  He 
was  preparing  for  one  of  his  most  daring  and  most 
glorious  campaigns. 


(  HAPTER  VIII 
In  the   Land  of  the  Rising  Sun 

(1549-1552) 

EN  today  ises  a  wonderful  fascina- 

n  over  the  Western  mind.     Its  sudden  rise 
within  a  half  century  from  the  position  of  an 

:ic  empire  kept  aloof  from  the  interests  of  the  rest 
of  the  worlcLto  the  rank  of  a  first-class  power,  whose 
representatives  have  taken  their  seats  at  the  Peace  Con- 
gress with  the  envoys  of  the  United  States  of  America 
and  the  oldest  governments  in  the  world  ;  the  victory  of 
its  armies  a  few  years  ago  over  the  Colossus  of  North- 
ern Europe,  its  strange  religions,  the  undeniable  virtues 
of  its  people  marred  by  defects  just  as  palpable,  the 

erious  seclusion  in  which  their  Mikado  lives,  the 
beauty   of    its   islands,   its   pagodas   and   gardens,    its 

resque  customs  where  the  old  and  the  new  so 
strangely  blend,  the  adaptability  of  its  people,  essen- 
tially Eastern,  and  yet  so  eager  to  mold  itself  to  West- 
ern ideals  and  ways,  its  quick  intelligence,  its  progres- 

spirit,  can  easily  explain  the  spell  which  "  The 
Land  of  the  Rising  Sun  "  still  weaves  about  us.  If 
such  is  the  case  now,  what  must  have  been  that  fas- 
cination in  the  days  of  Xavier?  Nippon  was  then  a 
practically  unknown  land.  In  the  thirteenth  century 
the  :  r  Marco  Polo  had  brought  news  of 

Zipango,  as  he  called  the  island  empire,  to  Italy,  but 
lie  had  not  personally  visited  it.  A  Portuguese  mer- 
chant, Mendes  Pinto,  as  well  as  some  Portuguese 
sailors,  had  either  voluntarily  landed  at  one  of  the 
southern  islands  or  been  driven  ashore  by  a  storm 
about  [542.  Others  had  probably  visited  some  of  the 
ports,  but  if  they  had  landed,  had  not  gone  beyond 
the  limits  of  the  towns.  So  it  is  to  Francis 
that  e   practically   all    our   first   knowledge   of 

Japan,  its  religion  and  its  people. 

61 


62  ST.    FRANCIS   XAVIER 

In  one  of  his  journeys  to  Malacca  Xavier  had 
met  a  young  Japanese  named  Yajiro,  a  fugitive  from 
justice.  Either  in  a  quarrel  or  in  one  of  the  feuds 
then  raging  in  the  country,  Yajiro  had  killed  a  rival, 
and  to  escape  the  vengeance  of  the  murdered  man's 
relatives  or  the  arm  of  the  law,  had  taken  refuge  on 
board  a  Portuguese  ship  and  had  been  smuggled  to 
Malacca.  With  the  exile,  tortured  in  conscience  for 
his  crime,  and  who  had  picked  up  a  little  Portuguese, 
the  apostle  had  long  and  earnest  talks  both  about  his 
soul  and  his  country.  He  had  him  subsequently  sent 
to  the  College  of  the  Holy  Faith  in  Goa,  where  he 
was  instructed  in  the  Christian  religion  and  baptized. 
Yajiro  was  intelligent,  knew  the  history  of  his  coun- 
try, was  evidently  a  man  of  some  social  standing,  for 
two  servants  had  escaped  with  him,  and  was  anxious, 
now  that  he  had  the.  gift  of  faith,  that  his  countrymen 
should  share  his  happiness,  and  that  by  aiding  in  bring- 
ing the  light  of  the  truth  to  their  knowledge,  he  might 
in  some  measure  atone  for  his  crime. 

Xavier,  like  St.  Paul,  wisely  kept  in  his  missionary 
career  to  the  great  trade-routes  and  the  crossroads 
of  the  sea,  where  he  might  easily  catch  a  ship  and  like 
a  good  general  visit  in  person  the  spots  which  he 
deemed  of  strategic  importance  in  his  offensive.  He 
was  also,  like  all  good  missionaries,  a  keen  observer 
of  men  and  things,  and  extremely  inquisitive.  Much 
of  his  time  he  spent  on  the  decks  of  ships  of  all  kinds, 
from  the  galleon  of  Portugal  to  the  Malay  junk.  He 
had  sailed  so  often  to  Goa  from  Comorin  and  Malacca 
that  he  might  perhaps  have  piloted  his  own  bark  from 
those  remote  waters,  their  reefs  and  shoals,  straight 
for  the  islands  that  guard  the  entrance  to  the  harbor 
of  the  capital  of  India.  From  captain,  pilot,  cabin- 
boy  and  grizzled  veteran  he  must  have  learned  of 
many  strange  lands.  What  stories  he  must  have 
heard   as  the   ship  that  bore  him   from   Malacca  to 


ST.    FRANCIS    XAVIER  63 

Amboina,  or  Tcrnate,  les  of  palm  or  coral  reefs, 

over  sapphire  seas  shimmering  under  the  splendors 
of  the  noonday  sun,  or  silvered  by  the  rays  of  the  low- 
hung  southern  moon!  What  shopman's  tales  were 
poured  into  his  too  willing  ears  as  the  craft  rocked 
to  the  ocean's  lullaby,  of  romance  and  daring,  of  piracy 
and  war,  of  men  that  sailed  from  the  banks  of  the 
idego  and  the  castled  heights  of  Viseu,  in  their 
beloved  Portugal,  now  shipwrecked  and  lying  without 
Christian  burial  on  the  shores  of  that  fabled  land  of 
Nippon,  over  there,  under  the  beams  of  the  rising  sun ! 
>m  these  men  and  from  Yajiro,  Xavier  gathered 
many  details.  From  Yajiro  he  heard  of  the  religion, 
the  government,  the  customs,  the  high  intelligence, 
the  inquisitive  spirit  of  the  Japanese  people.  As  Xavier 
listened,  vast  horizons  opened  before  him.  Here  was  a 
civilized  State,  a  kingdom  with  a  regulated  polity,  a 
people  eager  to  learn.  Merchants  had  tried  to  enter 
its  territory  for  the  sake  of  material  gain.  He  would 
endeavor  to  penetrate  its  seclusion  to  bring  it  the  truth. 
Here  was  a  kingdom  to  be  won.  His  cry  had  ever 
been  since  he  began  his  apostolic  work:  "  Da  miJii  ani- 
mas":  Give  me  souls.  The  souls  of  his  unknown 
Japanese  brethren  were  calling  him  now.  He  must 
go  to  Japan,  enter  its  harbors  and  towns,  face  its  sages 
and  kings,  preach  Christ  and  His  Cross.  Francis 
had  preached  to  the  humble  Paravas  and  the  untu- 
tored islanders  of  Maluco  and  Tidor.  He  had  left 
behind  him  brave  hearts  to  continue  the  work.  God 
chose  him  now  to  be  a  vessel  of  election  to  carry  His 
name  before  Gentiles  and  kings. 

On  the  Feast  of  St.  John  the  Baptist,  June 
1549,  Xavier  set  sail  from  Malacca  to  Japan.  The 
journey  covered  at  least  3,000  miles.  With  Xavier  was 
a  little  band  of  followers,  among  whom  were  his  Jesuit 
brethren,  Cosmo  de  Torres  and  John  Fernandez. 
Yajiro  also  accompanied  the  Saint.     The  craft  that 


64  ST.    FRANCIS   XAVIER 

bore  the  apostle  was  a  lumbering  Chinese  junk  in 
command  of  a  Chinese  freebooter  or  pirate,  and  the 
expedition  on  which  the  pagan  rover  now  engaged  was 
in  all  probability  the  only  honest  one  on  which  he, 
his  ship  and  his  crew  had  ever  embarked.  Francis  has 
left  an  account  of  the  nine  weeks'  journey,  and  it  is 
as  brave  a  piece  of  sea-tale  as  was  ever  set  down 
in  a  ship's  log.  The  treachery,  the  fears,  the  avarice 
of  the  Chinese  captain  almost  halted  or  wrecked  the 
expedition,  but  Xavier  had  recommended  the  journey 
to  God.  He  never  faltered.  By  prayers,  cajolery 
and  threats  he  at  last  induced  the  pirate  to  keep  his 
word.  His  control  of  the  heart  and  will  of  his  fellows 
never  appeared  so  striking.  The  shores  of  the  Island 
of  Kiushiu  were  at  last  in  sight,  and  the  junk  dropped 
anchor  in  the  deep,  land-locked  Bay  of  Kagoshima,  on 
the  fifteenth  of  August,  a  day  dear  to  his  heart,  for  it 
recalled  the  happy  hours  when,  side  by  side  with  Igna- 
tius, he  had  pronounced  his  vows  at  Montmartre  and 
received  his  God  from  the  newly  anointed  hands  of 
the  beloved  Peter  le  Fevre.  Their  spirits  were  with 
him  now,  Ignatius  following  him  from  Rome,  Peter 
guarding  him  from  Heaven. 

Our  apostle  had  shown  throughout  his  work  in 
India  and  the  Moluccas  how  well  equipped  he  was  to 
deal  with  the  motley  nations  he  evangelized.  In  deal- 
ing with  them  he  had  mainly  to  struggle  against  the 
arguments  of  passion,  although  he  had  occasionally 
to  face  the  objections  of  the  Brahmins  and  their  fol- 
lowers. But  the  intellectual  level  he  had  met  among 
the  Pearl  Fishers  and  the  Malays  could  not  be  com- 
pared with  the  minds  of  the  alert  and  subtle  Shintoists 
and  Buddhists  of  the  Land  of  the  Rising  Sun.  But 
he  faced  the  test  admirably.  It  was  not  in  vain  that 
he  had  spent  such  long  years  over  his  Aristotle  and 
his  St.  Thomas.  We  know  that  in  logic,  in  argument, 
in  keenness  of  intellectual  perception,  in  readiness  of 


ST.    FRAN  WlKk 

retort,  in  the  with  which  1  ered  the  most 

object*  the    J  a]  scholars    and 

than  a  match  for  the  best  whom 

they  put  forth  against  the  \ho  preached 

such  a  strange  doctrine.  During  the  more  than  two 
lich  he  spent  in  Japan,  at  Firando,  now  Ili- 
rado,  to  the  northwest  of  Kagoshima,  on  that  mem- 
orable voyage  to  Miyako,  the  present  Kioto,  which 
proved  such  a  disappointment  to  his  zeal,  and  in  the 
kingdom  of  Bungo  he  held  his  own  against  the  skill 
and  the  sophistries  of  all,  to  the  amazement  even  of 
his  companions,  already  familiarized  with  his  powers. 
On  the  trip  with  Yajiro  from  Malacca  to  Kiushiu, 
Xavier,  with  whom  the  gift  of  tongues  was  but  tran- 
sitory, and  who  knew  that  God  wished  him  to  use 
his  natural  gifts  to  the  utmost  for  His  glory,  had 
studied  Japanese,  and  when  he  landed  in  the  country, 
able,  with  the  help  of  Yajiro  and  a  few  converts, 
to  make  an  abstract  of  the  catechism  and  the  main 
articles  of  the  Catholic  Faith,  together  with  the  prin- 
cipal prayers  recited  not  only  by  the  Japanese  whom 
he  won,  but  the  very  prayers  which  Xavier  himself 
had  recited  as  a  child  and  which  were  daily  said  by 
Pope,  peasant  and  priest  in  the  Old  World  and  in  the 

It  is  evident  from  the  letters  of  Xavier  that  the 
inhabitants  of  Kiushiu,  the  Satsumas  especially,  made 
a  deep  impression  upon  him.  He  noted  the  chivalrous 
murai,  their  skill  and  pride  in  arms, 
their  loyalty  to  their  chiefs.  These  were  qualities 
which  made  appeal  to  the  Navarrese  hidalgo. 

In  spite  of  their  vices,  the  Japanese  had  in  them  the 

>uld  only  he  vitalized 

he  principles  of  the  Gospel,  what  men  he  would 

make  of  them!     He  spared  n  He  had  one  of 

the    !  r    a    missionary. 

he  was   in   sympathy   with   his   flock.      Though   in   his 


66  ST.    FRANCIS    XAVIER 

letters  to  his  brethren,  he  exposed  in  a  few  bold 
words  what  he  thought  of  the  license,  the  trickery,  the 
hidden  vices  of  the  bonzes,  and  the  pride  of  the  people, 
he  loved  the  children  of  Nippon  with  a  deep  affection 
and  called  them  his  delight.  In  India  he  had  fished 
with  the  net,  an  old  Jesuit  biographer  of  his  writes ; 
in  Japan  he  had  to  be  satisfied  with  the  rod  and  line. 
Conversions  were  made  slowly.  But  the  converts 
were  of  the  sturdiest  kind.  The  little  band  which  on 
his  departure  from  Kagoshima  he  left  behind  him  did 
not  see  a  European  for  more  than  ten  years.  When 
the  white  man  came  again  he  found  the  disciples  of  the 
apostle  faithful  to  the  lessons  they  had  heard  from 
Father  Francis  and  still  reciting  the  prayers  and  sing- 
ing the  hymns  he  had  taught  them.  And  when,  more 
than  three  centuries  after  his  death  and  more  than 
two  centuries  after  the  departure  of  the  last  priest, 
Catholic  missionaries  returned  to  Japan,  they  found 
that  the  Faith,  apparently  overwhelmed  by  the  crim- 
son billows  of  persecution,  still  lived  in  the  hearts 
of  thousands,  and  the  heroic  Father  Petitjean,  the 
second  Founder  of  the  Japanese  Missions,  saw  the 
descendants  of  those  whom  Xavier,  his  companions 
and  successors,  had  won  to  Christ,  kneeling  before 
him,  and  faithful  in  spite  of  years  of  suffering  and 
blood,  to  the  doctrine  which  Xavier  had  taught  them. 
The  history  of  the  Catholic  Church,  in  spite  of  all  its 
heroisms,  can  give  but  few  examples  of  similar  cour- 
age and  constancy. 

At  Kagoshima  the  actual  harvest  of  Xavier  was 
small.  But  the  place  proved  a  training  camp  for  him. 
There  he  learnt  his  people,  their  language,  their 
manners  and  their  ways.  At  Firando,  further  north, 
where  we  find  him  in  the  autumn  of  1550,  he  thrusts 
his  sickle  with  undiminished  ardor  into  the  ripe  grain 
of  fields  already  white  for  the  harvest.  In  a  few  days 
he  had  baptized  a  hundred  of  its  citizens.    The  daimyo, 


ST.    FRANCIS    XAVIER  6; 

or  petty  lord  who  ruled  the  city  under  the  supreme 
power  of  the  Shogun  or  Generalissimo,  who  in  turn, 
and,  nominally  at  least,  recognized  the  figure  -  head 
Mikado,   received  him  and  his  companions  cordially. 

so  blessed  Xavier's  efforts  that  a  few  Portuguese 
merchants  whom  he  found  at  Kagoshima  were  allowed 

uild  a  little  chapel,  where  the  newly  made  converts 
came  to  worship.  The  heart  of  the  apostle  must  have 
thrilled  with  joy  as  he  beheld  that  devoted  little  band. 
Already  he  dreamt  of  greater  conquests,  of  a  wider 

ter  for  his  zeal.     He  had  heard  of  Miyako,  now 

to,  then  the  imperial  city  and  the  capital  of  the 
country.  With  the  audacity  of  the  Saints  and  the 
spirit  of  adventure  which  we  admire  in  the  great  ex- 
plorers of  his  time,  who  sought  for  new  routes  on  land 
and  sea  and  crossed  oceans  to  seek  out  the  El  Do- 
rados of  their  dreams,  he  decided  to  go  to  the  Secret 
e  Shogun  and  Mikado  in  their  very  palaces, 
and  preach  the  Cross. 

Miyako  was  300  miles  from  Yamaguchi  on  the  main 
island  of  Nippon.  From  a  worldly  point  of  view 
the  mere  idea  of  going  there  seemed  folly.  But  never 
was   Xavier  bolder,   never  more  confident    in    God. 

er  did  the  flame  of  his  apostolic  zeal  leap  to  a 
brighter  gleam.  He  showed  in  India  and  the  Moluccas 
of  what  splendid  fiber  he  was  made.  But  now  he 
is  the  Knight  Errant  of  the  Cross.  He  goes  forth  on 
this  daring  expedition  with  two  companions,  Juan 
andez  and  the  Japanese  Bernard.  Save  for  the 
coins  which  Bernard  is  carrying  in  his  wallet, 
the  few  crusts  of  bread  and  the  handful  of  rice,  ab- 
solutely necessary  to  keep  body  and  soul  together ;  a 
few  books  such  as  the  Breviary  and  Missal  which 
Francis  carries  on  his  shoulders  with  the  portable 
altar,  a  coarse  blanket  for  the  night's  rest,  they  are 
penniless  and  helpless.  Autumn  had  set  in  when 
they  left  Yamaguchi,  to  which  they  crossed  by  the 


68  ST.    FRANCIS    XAVIER 

narrow  strait  of  Shimonoseki.  Roads  are  almost  im- 
passable.' The  snows  soon  hide  them  from  the  way- 
farers. Frozen  streams  bar  their  path.  The  sleet 
dashes  its  iron  barbs  against  their  faces.  Winds 
sweeping  from  the  hills  buffet  their  miserably  clad 
forms.  Their  progress  can  be  marked  by  crimson 
stains  on  the  snow.  Where  do  they  find  shelter? 
In  some  hollow  of  the  road,  or  in  some  poor  man's 
hut,  or  under  the  lea  of  a  protecting  pagoda.  But 
dauntless  is  the  heart  of  the  apostle,  and  he  kindles 
the  flame  of  a  holy  enthusiasm  in  the  heart  of  his 
companions.  Prayer  ever  sustains  him.  And  daily 
the  great  Sacrifice  of  the  Mass  brings  down  from 
Heaven  the  Atoning  Victim  and  Xavier  lifts  up  the 
white  Host  over  the  snow-covered  fields. 

He  meets  with  few  friendly  faces  on  the  journey. 
The  two-sworded  Samurai  rides  past  him  with  a  look 
of  mingled  pity  and  scorn ;  the  bonze  and  the  laborer 
or  the  merchant  openly  ridicule  the  traveler  in  his 
threadbare  cloak.  Civil  war  was  raging,  and  time 
and  again  Xavier  and  his  companions  faced  death 
at  the  hands  of  the  marauders  straggling  over  the 
countryside.  But  he  kept  on.  Nothing  could  hold 
him  back.  Cold,  hunger,  poverty,  loneliness,  pang 
of  body  and  soul,  all  these  he  counted  as  dross  for 
the  love  of  his  Lord  and  Master  whose  law  he  had 
come  to  preach.  His  enthusiasm  was  never  chilled, 
his  ardor  was  never  quenched ;  his  purpose  never 
stayed,  his  feet  never  halted  or  stumbled  on  that  long 
journey  to  the  gates  of  the  imperial  city. 

At  the  end  of  January,  1551,  Xavier  beheld  the 
walls  of  Miyako.  The  sight  must  have  been  disap- 
pointing even  to  Francis,  whose  eyes  cared  little  for 
the  glories  of  earth.  The  walls  had  crumbled,  the 
palaces  of  the  Shogun  and  the  Mikado  had  lost  their 
splendor,  the  city  bristled  with  signs  of  war.  Civil 
strife   had    divided    it   into    factions,    and    frequently 


ST.    FRANCIS    XAVIER  69 

sounded  to  the  dash  of  the  rival 

-  of  the   Ilosokawas    and    the    Miyoshis.      But 
unterrified.     lie  hacj  come  to  Miyako  to 

the  king,  the  emperor  we  would  now  call  him — 
of  the  present  Mikado.  In  reality  there 
two  rulers,  the  Mikado  the  rightful  but  helpless 
emperor,  then  an  old  and  feeble  man,  and  the  Com- 
mander-in-Chief of  the  armies,  or  Shogun,  a  boy  of 
fifteen,  the  tool  and  victim  of  the  powerful  daimyos, 
or  feudal  lords  then  tyrannizing  over  the  country. 

Xavier  remained  eleven  days  in  Miyako.  They 
were  the  most  painful  perhaps  of  his  long  and  labor- 
ious life,  more  crowded  with  suffering  and  humiliation 
than  any  even  of  the  years  that  he  had  spent  in 
India  and  the  Spice  Islands.  For  eleven  days  he 
tried  to  see  Shogun  or  Mikado,  waiting  at  the  palace 
gates  in  the  cold,  rain  and  snow,  the  object  of  the 
scorn  and  derision,  sometimes  the  ill-treatment  of 
the    throng    that    hung    at    the    doors    of    the    two 

erious  potentates.     He  tried  to  gain  admittance 

prayer  and  appeal,  by  the  offering  of  such 
slender  presents  as  his  poverty  could  afford.  Hints 
were  given  him  that  for  a  sum  far  exceeding  what 
he  then  had  or  could  possibly  hope  to  raise,  he 
might  be  admitted  to  the  royal  presence.  He  waited, 
clung  like  a  beggar  before  the  portals,  eating  out 
his  heart  in  vain  and  empty  longings,  again  and  again 
turned  away  by  the  guards  and  the  people;  again  and 

n  returning  to  seek  an  entrance,  in  order  that 
the  prince  might  hear  of  the  Gospel,  of  Christ,  of 
of  his  duty  to  God  and  his  own  people,  and 
give  permission  to  have  the  name  of  the  true  God 
the  Japanese.  Xavier  is  the  apostle  of 
action  above  all  things.  Now  he  is  the  model  of 
patience  and  humility.     I  pointment  must  have 

been  painful  to  1  galling  to  his  pride.     For  if 

he  was  the  humble  follower  of  Ignatius,  he  was  also 


70  ST.    FRANCIS    XAVIER 

a  Spanish  hidalgo,  and  his  haughty  spirit  must  have 
keenly  felt  the  humiliation.  It  was  God's  will  that 
the  future  glories  of  the  Church  of  Miyako  should 
have  their  beginning  not  in  the  success  of  the  Saint, 
but  in  his  sufferings. 

Miyako  was  closed  to  him.  He  lost  no  time  in 
vain  regrets  or  attempts  which  he  now  felt  to  be 
futile.  If  the  Shogun  and  the  Mikado  thrust  him 
aside,  the  daimyos  of  the  south  would  receive  him. 
He  returns  then  in  midwinter  over  the  same  roads 
he  had  traveled  a  few  weeks  ago,  and  after  a  short 
stay  at  Firando,  where  he  leaves  Cosmo  de  Torres  to 
carry  on  the  good  work,  he  returns  to  Yamaguchi. 
He  has  learned,  however,  that  the  Japanese  despise 
the  outward  forms  of  poverty.  So  he  changes  his 
threadbare  cassock  for  a  better  one,  and,  remembering 
the  letters  he  bears  from  the  King  of  Portugal,  the 
Governor  of  India  and  the  Bishop  of  Goa,  he  brings 
into  play  his  quality  and  titles  of  ambassador,  and  with 
a  few  European  trinkets  as  gifts  from  Portugal,  a 
three-barreled  arquebus,  a  pair  of  spectacles,  a  few 
mirrors,  a  clock  that  struck  the  hours,  journeys  once 
more  northward  to  Yamaguchi.  The  daimyo  wel- 
comes him,  accepts  the  presents  and  gives  him  his 
protection.  Here  at  last  converts  are  made,  not  in 
any  great  number,  but  enough  to  console  the  apostle 
for  his  labors  and  sufferings.  The  bonzes  flock  to 
hear  him  and  dispute  with  him.  Against  the  funda- 
mental dogmas  of  the  Faith  they  bring  their  most 
subtle  objections.  Creation,  the  existence  of  God, 
His  nature,  His  attributes,  were  in  turn  attacked 
by  them  and  defended  by  Xavier.  And  the  seal  of 
suffering  and  persecution  was  not  to  be  wanting. 
Twice,  according  to  the  process  of  beatification,  he 
was  attacked  by  the  bonzes  and  cruelly  beaten,  twice, 
was  on  the  point  of  being  put  to  death  when  a  furious 


ST.    FRANCIS    XAVIER  71 

storm  of  wind,  lightning  and  rain  saved  him  from  the 
hands  of  his  enemies. 

God  was  with   His  servant,  because  the  heart  of 
Xavier  lived   in   God  and   for  God.     If  Xavier  con- 
1  to  wear  a  better  cassock  and  to  appear  with 
vremony  at  the  Court  of  the  lord  of  Yama- 
guchi  and  later,  of  the  daimyo  of  Bungo,  one  of  the 
provinces     of     Kiushiu,     situated     at     its     northern 
emity,  that  was  merely  for  the  eye  of  the  Jap- 
an d  to  close  any  avenue  from  which   ridicule 
might   be  cast  upon  his  mission  and  his  work.     But 
imself,  lie  laid  down  a  rule  of  the  sternest  asceti- 
and  mortification  from  which  he  never  departed. 
fasts,  vigils  and  mortifications  never  ceased.     It 
a  marvel  that  he  was  able  to  continue  his  labors, 
for   he   gave   his   body   no    rest.     At   Yamaguchi 
all  through  his  labors  in  Japan,  he  ate  the  coarse  fare 
of  the  poorest,  the  rice  and  the  vegetables  common 
among  the  people.     We   know    from     the    Japanese 
Bernard,  his  faithful  companion,  that  the  apostle  spent 
many  hours  of  the  night  in  prayer.     Even  in  his  sleep 
his  heart  was  watching  and  his  lips  unconsciously  mur- 
mured the   Holy   Name.     Bernard   later  on  testified 
that  with  his  own  eyes  he  had  seen  the  Saint  lay  his 
hands  upon  the  deaf,  the  paralytic  and  the  dumb,  and 
that  he  had  healed   them ;  that   he   had   often   heard 
him   answering  in   a   single   sentence   several   totally 
rent     objections     which     the     Japanese    brought 
nst  the  mysteries  of  the  Faith.     It  is  no  wonder, 
then,  that,  as  the  old  companion  of  Xavier  tells  us, 
the   Japanese   looked    upon    Francis   as   a   man   come 
n  from  Heaven  and  superior  to  the  rest  of  mor- 

vier's  tour  of  inspection  of  the  advanced  trenches 
of  his  far-flung  battle-line  in  the  East  was  drawing 
to  a  close.  India,  he  felt,  needed  him,  and  already 
from  the  depths  of  that  immense  empire  of   China 


72  ST.    FRANCIS    XAVIER 

he  heard  mystic  voices  calling  and  asking  that  it  also 
should  behold  the  light,  which  he  had  brought  to  Japan. 
In  the  autumn  of  1551  Xavier,  after  his  visit  to  the 
friendly  daimyo  of  Bungo,  bade  farewell  to  the  Land 
of  the  Rising  Sun.  No  European  has  ever  loved  it 
so  well  as  he.  Not  one  of  the  great  men  of  the  land 
of  the  Mikado  ever  entertained  for  it  the  dreams 
of  glory  which  visited  the  mind  and  heart  of  Xavier 
as  he  stood  before  the  men  of  Firando  and  Kago- 
shima  and  thought  of  all  that  its  chivalrous  Samurais, 
its  sturdy  and  frugal  race  might  do,  if  the  Faith  that 
was  his  might  leaven  the  whole  nation.  He  had  not 
done  all  that  he  had  dreamed  of  accomplishing  for 
Nippon.  In  all  probability  he  had  not  made  more 
than  2,000  converts,  a  thousand  of  these,  perhaps,  at 
Yamaguchi.  But  these  are  the  founders  of  the  glo- 
rious Church  of  Japan,  the  forerunners  of  these 
Martyr  Saints,  Paul  Miki,  James  Kisai,  John  de  Goto 
and  their  companions,  noble  matrons,  lisping  children, 
Samurai  and  humble  toiler,  who  on  the  fiery  hills 
of  Nagasaki  and  in  the  frightful  sulphur  pits  of  Ungen 
gladly  laid  down  their  lives  for  the  Faith  which  Fran- 
cis had  brought  to  their  fathers. 

On  leaving  his  beloved  Japanese,  Francis  made  them 
a  parting  gift.  He  gave  them  that  faithful  com- 
panion and  friend,  that  indefatigable  worker,  the  good 
brother  John  Fernandez,  whose  eloquence  and  argu- 
mentative powers,  heightened  by  gentleness  and  pa- 
tience, won  the  admiration  and  love  of  all.  In  speak- 
ing of  him,  Father  Cosmo  de  Torres,  another  of  the 
Saint's  faithful  co-laborers,  said  that  if  it  was  from 
the  lips  of  Xavier  that  Japan  had  received  the  Faith, 
it  was  Brother  John  who  preserved  that  Faith  when 
the  great  apostle  departed  for  India. 

Toward  the  middle  of  March,  1552,  after  a  journey 
during  which,  in  the  midst  of  one  of  these  typhoons 
which  sweep  over  the  eastern  seas,  he  foretold  the 


ST.    FRANCIS    XAVIER  73 

irn    to    the    ship    of    the    dory    which    had   broken 

its  G  ur  of   the  crew   into  the 

>m.    Xavier    reached    Goa.      Ignatius 

1   him  his  letters  patent  nominating  him 

Provincial  oi  the  Ind  as  now  in  a  very 

>e   the   alter   ego,   the   representative   of 

Ignatius  for  all  the  Jesuit  missionaries  in  India,  from 

uz  in   the  north,   where   Caspar  Baertz  was 

doing  wonders  for  the  Faith,  to  Cape  Comorin  in  the 

south,  and  thence  to  Malacca,  the  Moluccas  and  Japan. 

Domestic  occupied  him  for  a  short  time.     He 

n  a  great   discoverer  and  pathfinder,  he  was 

equally  great  as  an  organizer.    At  the  end  of  May  he 

for  another  great  adventure 
for  the  Kingdom  and  the  King.    But  even  to  the  Saints 
the  ways  of  God  are  hidden.     Xavier  thought  of  an- 
other empire  to  he  won.     God  was  going  to  end  and 
n  the  labors  of  His  stalwart  soldier. 


CHAPTER  IX 

The  Locked  Gate  and  the  Opening  Portals 

(1552) 

SHIPMASTERS  and  pilots,  merchants  and  sea- 
men had  always  been  numbered  among  Xavier's 
best  friends.  Every  shipboy  that  sailed  from 
Goa  to  Malacca  or  Tidor  must  at  some  time  or  other 
have  met  the  Saint.  To  live  with  him  for  a  few  weeks 
on  the  deck  of  a  light  fuste  or  coasting  vessel  or 
caraque  was  to  love  him.  To  see  him  calm  the  storm 
or  turn  the  sea  brine  into  fresh  water  by  the  sign 
of  the  Cross,  to  hear  him  pray  for  the  souls  in  mortal 
sin  while  the  ship  was  battered  by  the  onslaught  of  the 
ocean's  mad  artillery,  or  praise  God  for  the  wonders 
of  the  deep  and  the  ever-renewed  mysteries  of  the 
dawn  and  sunset  and  starlight,  was  to  reverence  him 
like  an  angel  and  prophet  of  God.  To  kneel  at  his 
feet  and  pour  the  secret  of  their  lives,  their  sins,  into 
his  priestly  heart  was  to  rise  strengthened  to  grip 
with  sterner  hold  the  rudder  of  life's  bark  and  to 
steer  straight  for  the  true  haven  whither  all  men 
must  sail.  His  cheering  words  clearly  outlined  the 
chart  of  life,  pointed  out  the  beacons  of  safety  and 
the  shoals  of  danger.  The  rudest  could  not  but  rev- 
erence him,  and  felt  that  he  was  almost  more  than 
man,  a  seraph  burning  with  the  purest  love  of  God, 
and  lent  to  them  as  a  brother  and  a  friend. 

Among  the  merchants  whom  Xavier  counted  among 
his  friends  was  a  Portuguese,  Diogo  Pereira.  God 
had  blessed  this  gallant  gentleman  with  wealth,  for- 
tune, success.  His  ships  had  paid  toll  in  almost  every 
harbor  in  the  East.  His  "  Santa  Croce,"  "  the  Holy 
Cross,"  was  as  stout  a  bark  and  as  successful  in  its 
ventures  as  any  of  the  galleons  that  hoisted  sail  on 
the  nine  and  seven  seas.  Diogo's  purse  and  home  had 
ever  been  open  to  Xavier.     For  under  the  garb  of 

74 


FRANCIS    XAVIER  75 

the  merchant,  Pereira  had  the  views  of  a  whole-hearted 

stian,  a  true  patriot  and  not  a  little  of  the  spirit 

in  ambassador  of  Christ.     Xavier  knew  him  well 

and    loved    him.      The   love   of   the   Apostle    for   the 

uguese   merchant   is   proof   enough   of    Pereira'^ 

genuine  worth  and  goodness. 

On  his  return  from  Japan,  as  Xavier  was  sailing 
off  the  Chinese  coast,  near  that  island  of  Sancian 
destined  to  be  so  closely  associated  with  his  name,  he 
recognized  the  "  Santa  Croce  "  riding  at  anchor  off 
shore.  A  few  moments  after  he  was  clasping  the  mer- 
chant prince  in  his  arms.  On  the  journey  back  to  India 
the  merchant  of  the  wares  and  stuffs  and  perishable 
goods  of  earth,  and  the  merchant  of  the  Kingdom  of 
Heaven  and  the  treasures  of  eternity,  spoke  long  and 
often  of  the  things  dearest  to  their  hearts.  Pereira, 
of  the  most  venturesome  of  the  captains  of  in- 
dustry of  his  day,  had  endeavored  to  trade  directly 
with  China.  He  knew  that  it  was  folly  to  attempt 
nter  its  barred  gates,  for  death  had  been  decreed 
for  any  Portuguese  who  dared  set  foot  upon  its  soil. 
But  from  Sancian  and  the  neighboring  islands  some 
kind  of  barter  had  been  on  between  the  mer- 

chants   of    Canton    and    the    Portuguese.      Pereira's 
S   to  enter  the   forbidden  empire  was   shared 
It  seemed  even  to  be  a  silent  rebuke  to 
him.     Pereira  was  but  a  merchant  for  the  perishable 
things  of  time.     He  was  a  merchant  of  the  Kingdom 
of   Heaven.      He   must   be   as   brave.     He   must,   he 
will  attempt  as  much  as  he.     The  idea  of  the  mis 
to  China  already  in  germ  in  the  mind  of  Xavier  dur- 
his  journey  to  Japan  was  matured  in  the  course 
of  long  and  earnest  conversations  with  his  friend. 

,   still   full  of  his   experiences   in  Japan   and 
longing  to   see  his   work   continued    tin  con- 

vinced that  the  interests  of  the  Japanese  mission  de- 
manded that  the  Gospel  should  be  preached  in  China. 


76  ST.    FRANCIS    XAVIER 

The  only  means,  he  concluded,  by  which  the  Faith 
might  penetrate  into  that  vast  empire,  was  to  organize 
an  embassy.  The  Viceroy,  Alphonso  de  Noronha,  would 
provide  for  the  costly  gifts  it  would  be  necessary 
to  present  to  the  Chinese  princes,  Pereira  would  be 
the  bearer  and  the  ambassador,  and  Francis  would 
accompany  him.  Great  dreams  came  to  Xavier  as 
the  plan  was  unfolded,  and  if  Pereira  thought  of  the 
precious  cargoes  he  would  ferry  back  and  forth  in 
his  adventurous  cruise,  and  the  doubloons  he  would 
reap,  he  did  not  forget  that  he  was  trying  also  to 
bring  the  light  of  his  own  Faith  to  the  benighted 
inhabitants  of  the  empire  so  far  closed  to  Europeans. 
But  Francis,  poorer  after  ten  years  in  the  golden 
East  than  the  poorest  of  his  Paravas;  Francis,  whose 
bed  was  the  coil  of  rope  by  the  rudder  of  the  "  Santa 
Croce,"  or  a  few  palm  leaves  in  the  hut  of  his  pearl 
fishers,  or  an  humble  cell  in  the  College  of  the  Holy 
Faith  at  Goa;  Francis,  the  Nuncio  of  Pope  Paul  f II, 
who  ate  the  coarse  food  of  the  coolies  of  Malacca, 
what  cared  he  for  all  the  gold  of  Ormuz  or  of  Ind? 
What  recked  his  royal  heart  for  the  treasures  of  Gol- 
conda,  the  wealth  of  the  pearl-decked  Rajahs  of 
Kandy  and  Travancore,  or  the  fabulous  riches  of  man- 
darins and  princes  of  Canton  and  Peking?  He  had 
but  one  ambition,  he  looked  for  the  fulfilment  of  but 
one  dream.  He  was  tortured  with  one  passion;  he 
wanted  souls.  And  on  the  "  Santa  Croce "  as  the 
brave  ship  loosened  its  wings  to  the  breeze  and  carved 
its  way  to  the  soft  seethings  of  the  southern  seas, 
Xavier  rested  his  hands  on  the  shoulder  of  the  Portu- 
guese merchant  and  repeated  again  and  again: 
"  Friend  Diogo,  what  doth  it  profit  a  man  if  he  gain 
the  whole  world  and  suffer  the  loss  of  his  own  soul? 
Or  what  exchange  shall  a  man  give  for  his  soul  ?  "  And 
over  against  that  Island  of  Sancian,  which  they  had 
just  left  behind,  Xavier  knew  that  men  were  bartering 


FRAN  WIKk  77 

souls  in  the  vast  Chii  lpire  for  the 

hable  things  of  time,  and  no  one  to  bring  them 
the  light,  no  \  i  them  the  truth! 

Toward  the  end  of   December,    1551,  Xavier  v 

tlacca,  the  pivot,  so  to  say,  of  his  move- 
A  flying  visit  to  Cochin  and 
the   end  of  his   journeys  on  his  ea 
lit.     By  the  end  of  May,    [552,  he  is  once  more 
Jalacca,   ready   for  his  last  and   surely  his   most 
age.    In  the  half  year  he  spends  in  India, 
luties  as  Provincial  absorb  all  his  attention.   Some 
entiment,  no  doubt,  told  him  that  his  days  were 
numbered,  and  that  he  must  provide  for  the  material 
and  spiritual  welfare  of  the  vast  territory  committed 
by  Master  Ignatius  to  his  care.     Never  did  Xavier's 
brethren   and    subjects    welcome   him    more   lovingly. 
id  the  grace  and  the  charm  of  his  personality 
winsome.     Fathers  Valignamo  and  Mel- 
cliior  Nunez,  writing  to  their  Jesuit  brethren  in  Eu- 
rope, can  scarcely  restrain  their  enthusiasm  and  ad- 
miration as  they  describe  the  affection,  the  zeal,  the 
charity,  the  gaiety,  the  almost  boyish  enthusiasm  of 
the  apostle  as  he  speaks  to  them  of  God,  and  His 
Bles-  her  and  the  Society  of  Jesus  and  Master 

Ignatius.     Ignatius  and   his    Society  have  had  bitter 
eneir  it    Xavier   loved   both    with    all   the 

rdor  of  his  great  heart.     That  love  alor 
upremely  eloquent  refutation  of  their  slandei 
Go  eral    that   he    w;<. 

1  eld  of  battle  over  which  his  soldiers  are 
fighting,    strengthens    his   outposts    in    the    Molu 

rves  at  Goa  and  Cochin,  shifts  his 
men  from  one  point  of  the  threatened  field  to  an- 
Othei  hem  their  last  marching  and  ' 

[n    I  the    China    \ 

in   that   empil 

.  will  ad 


78  ST.    FRANCIS   XAVIER 

Vice-Provincial.  On  his  departure  from  what  had 
long  been  his  headquarters  in  the  East,  the  Saint 
kneels  at  the  feet  of  Gaspar  and  renews  his  vows  of 
obedience,  although  the  Vice-Provincial  loudly  but 
lovingly  protests,  and  the  community  can  scarcely 
restrain  their  tears  and  sobs  as  they  witness  this 
supreme  act  of  humility  and  self-abasement,  and  real- 
ize that  their  Father  is  going  on  a  long,  long  journey 
and  they  will  see  him  no  more.  On  the  Holy  Thurs- 
day of  1552,  after  adoring  his  Lord  in  the  reposi- 
tory of  the  College  Church,  Francis  went  aboard 
the  ship  that  was  to  carry  him  to  Malacca.  Groa  would 
never  behold  him  living  again.  But  it  was  to  receive 
his  hallowed  remains  in  great  triumph  and  glory,  and 
there,  though  dead,  he  speaketh  still. 

Shortly  after  Xavier's  arrival  at  Malacca,  at  the 
end  of  May,  the  "  Santa  Croce,"  en  route  from  Singa- 
pore, hove  in  sight  with  Pereira  on  board.  The  Vice- 
roy, Alphonso  de  Noronha,  had  welcomed  the  project 
of  the  merchant  and  the  missionary  for  the  expedi- 
tion to  China,  and  had  forwarded  to  Pereira  the 
letters  of  credit  he  needed  for  the  journey  and  at  the 
same  time  his  credentials  as  ambassador.  Xavier 
on  his  part  had  letters  from  the  Bishop  of  Goa  to  the 
"  King  of  China."  Noronha  moreover  had  placed 
one  of  the  King's  ships  at  the  disposal  of  the  little 
embassy.     So  far,  all  was  well. 

A  great  disappointment,  however,  was  awaiting 
Francis.  He  had  foretold  it,  for  he  had  said  several 
times  that  he  would  meet  with  great  difficulties  at 
Malacca.  But  even  he  did  not  know  with  what  malice 
and  obstinacy  his  plans  were  to  be  thwarted.  So  far 
in  his  missions,  hard  as  they  were,  he  had  suffered, 
not  so  much  from  the  malice  of  man,  as  from  the 
inherent  difficulties  in  the  work.  At  Miyako,  it  is 
true,  he  had  faced  failure,  but  it  had  come  from 
pagans.     Now  the  disappointment  and  the  heart-pang 


ST.    FRANCIS   XAVIER  79 

were  to  come  from  one  of  his  own  people,  from  one 
whose  duty  it  was  to  help  him,  one  whom  he  had 
called  friend,  from  a  man  who  bore  the  most  illustrious 
name  in  India,  Alvaro  d'Ataide,  the  son  of  the  great 
Vasco  &2  Gama,  and  then  captain  of  the  port,  and  com- 
mandant of  Malacca. 

With  Alvaro  d'Ataide  and  Pedro  cle  Silva,  his 
brother,  who  had  just  been  relieved  of  his  duties  of 
captain  and  commandant  at  the  Straits,  Francis  had 
always  been  on  friendly  terms.  With  Pedro  his  rela- 
tions do  not  seem  to  have  altered.  What  was  the 
cause  of  Alvaro's  sudden  change  of  mind?  The  his- 
torians of  Xavier,  after  everything  has  been  sifted, 
seem  to  agree  that  disappointed  ambition  and  jeal- 
ousy caused  the  commandant  to  block  Pereira  and 
Xavier  in  their  embassy.  Alvaro,  as  far  as  can  be 
gathered  from  contemporary  writers,  was  envious  of 
the  good  fortune  of  Pereira  and  would  not  brook  to 
see  a  common  trader  suddenly  lifted  to  the  position 
of  ambassador  to  the  court  of  Pekin.  Perhaps  Alvaro 
had  also  cast  a  longing  glance  on  the  more  material 
profits  of  the  adventure  and  regretted  that  Pereira 
should  exclusively  enjoy  them.  Whatever  may  have 
been  the  motives  of  the  commandant,  his  heartless  op- 
position to  the  plans  of  Xavier  and  his  friend  un- 
doubtedly wrecked  their  high  hopes.  God  was  thus 
purifying  His  missionary.  Xavier  had  suffered  keenly 
at  his  failure  in  Miyako,  but  the  pangs  he  now  felt, 
as  we  can  easily  gather  from  his  letters,  were  those 
of  a  real  martyrdom.  Many  jewels  decked  his  crown ; 
the  gem  of  sorrow,  of  blighted  hopes  and  shattered 
dreams  was  lacking.  The  Angel  of  Suffering  placed  it 
there  during  the  days  of  his  last  stay  at  Malacca. 
Like  his  Master  and  King,  Xavier  wore  his  crown 
of  thorns.  It  was  a  friend  of  former  days  that  placed 
it  on  his  brow. 

Hardly  had  Pereira  landed  from  the  "  Santa  Croce  " 


So  ST.    FRANCIS    XAVIER 

than  Alvaro  cTAtaide  put  the  embargo  on  his  ship, 
had  its  rudder  seized  and  put  under  guard  near  his  own 
house.  The  act  meant  open  war  between  Xavier  and 
the  commandant,  for  it  clearly  showed  that  Alvaro 
would  exert  all  his  power  to  stop  the  expedition. 
It  was  something  very  like  treason  on  the  part  of 
the  governor.  Pedro  de  Silva,  the  commandant's 
brother,  tried  to  make  Alvaro  listen  to  the  voice  of 
reason  and  honor.  D'Ataide  turned  a  deaf  ear  to  these 
pleadings  of  friendship  and  brotherly  love.  Bernar- 
dino de  Sousa,  a  gallant  and  honorable  soldier,  dis- 
tinguished for  his  services  in  the  Moluccas,  tried 
also  to  appease  him.  His  prayers  were  useless.  At 
one  time  it  looked  as  if  there  was  going  to  be  blood- 
shed, for  Pereira's  crew  threatened  to  seize  the  rudder 
by  force.  Xavier,  with  a  single  word,  prevented  the 
affray.  God  would  know  how  to  take  care  of  His 
own  and  do  justice. 

If  Xavier  was  one  of  the  gentlest  of  men,  he  was 
also  absolutely  fearless.  He  had  faced  the  Vadagars, 
he  was  never  known  to  quail  before  shipwreck  or 
storm  or  death.  He  had  taken  his  life  in  his  hands 
when  he  went  to  Japan.  He  did  not  quail  now. 
Alvaro  d'Ataide  was  doing  an  open  wrong  to  the 
King  and  to  God<  He  was  blocking  the  path  of  an 
envoy  of  the  Viceroy  of  the  Indies,  he  was  holding 
back  an  envoy  of  the  King  of  Heaven  to  the  pagans. 
He  was  false  to  his  oath  as  a  gentleman  and  a  knight, 
false  to  the  memory  of  his  great  father,  Vasco  de 
Gama.  Xavier  had  tried  every  means  possible  in 
order  to  conciliate  him  and  soften  that  hard  heart. 
He  had  failed. 

There  was  one  last  resort.  Reluctant  as  he  was  to 
apply  this  remedy,  the  Saint  felt  that  in  conscience 
there  was  no  other  path  to  follow.  He  was  the 
Apostolic  Nuncio  of  the  Sovereign  Pontiff  Pope  Paul 
III.     In  his  humility  he  had   well-nigh   forgotten   it. 


FRAN  WTEB  81 

main 

el  to  the 

ich  an  « 
ck  him  in  the  fulfilment  of  I 

-  then  ii  throughout  Chris- 

r's  hand 

tl  and  bless.     1  Ie 
lift  them  now  to  strike.     And  not  in  r 

spirit  of  pett  .  but 

in  tl  rod,  the  blow 

heard  the  sentence  o  mmu- 

with    rage   and    broke   out    into   a    torrent   of 

He  then  ordered  the  em- 
ted,  put  a  crew  of  bis  own  choos- 
mmanded  Pereira 

Santa  Croce  "  to 

were  be  so  minded, 

il  with  I 

the  midst  of  tin  Xavier  thought  not 

elf,    but    of    Pereira   and   d'Ataide.      He   had 

ruin-  id,  his  merchant  friend,  for  Diogo  had  put 

to  fit  out  the  ship  and  enter 

a  manner  worthy  of  an  envoy  of  the  Viceroy 

was  not  the  man  to  spare  expense 

or  h  few   thousand  doubloons.     Neither 

yal  merchant "  given  to  useless  wailings 

With  chivalrous  generosity,  he  gave 

hat  on  the  "  Santa  Croce"  Xavier  should  lack 

no  honor  or  comfort  or  aid  that  it  was  still  in  his 

e  him.     As  a  reward   Xavier  promised 

d  that  neither  he  nor  his  children  or  any 

r  be  in  suffering  or  want,  a  prophecy 

which  was  fulfilled  to  the  letter. 

ina  Xavier  must  go.     He  must  bid  fare- 
well  to   the   friend   whose   ship   had  been   his  home, 
a,  to  all  he  held  dear.     No  man 


82  ST.    FRANCIS    XAVIER 

ever  had  a  tenderer  or  more  loving  heart  than  Father 
Francis.  As  he  passed  the  church  only  at  a  stone's 
throw  from  the  governor's  house,  he  said  in  a  broken 
voice :  "  Don  Alvaro  will  see  me  no  more.  I  shall 
meet  him  at  the  tribunal  of  God."  Then,  lifting  his 
arms  in  the  form  of  a  cross,  he  prayed  for  his  perse- 
cutor. His  prayer  was  choked  with  the  sobs  of  a  man 
whose  heart  was  breaking.  He  then  knelt  on  the 
ground,  and  remained  silent  for  a  moment.  He  then 
rose,  took  off  his  shoes,  shook  off  the  dust  as  he  struck 
them  against  a  post,  and  in  the  midst  of  an  appalling 
silence  walked  down  to  the  dock  and  went  aboard  the 
"  Santa  Croce."  In  the  history  of  Portuguese  India 
there  is  perhaps  no  other  such  a  dramatic  scene. 
It  was  thus  that  of  old  the  insulted  and  indignant 
prophets  of  Israel  left  the  cities  that  would  not  listen 
to  the  Word  of  God. 

To. the  dreadful  summons  made  to  Alvaro  d'Ataide, 
Xavier  added  the  words :  "  God  spare  and  save  his 
soul."  That  prayer  was  heard.  Not  long  after  this 
terrible  scene,  Alvaro  returned  in  disgrace  to  Portugal, 
ruined  in  honor,  in  name,  in  health,  in  fortune.  He 
died  miserable  and  poor,  but  repentant.  He  had 
wrecked  the  plans  of  a  conqueror  and  a  saint; 
Xavier's  loving  prayer  for  his  persecutor's  soul  un- 
doubtedly brought  him  back  to  God.  That  was  his 
only  revenge. 

After  a  brief  stay  at  Singapore,  the  "  Santa  Croce  " 
brought  Xavier  and  the  two  companions  who  stayed 
with  him  to  the  end,  a  Malabar,  and  the  Chinese 
Antonio,  to  the  island  of  Sancian,  a  little  west  of 
Hong  Kong  and  within  sight  of  the  Chinese  coast. 
Canton  was  but  a  few  miles  away.  He  was  within 
sight  of  the  Promised  Land.  Its  gates  were  locked 
and  would  not  open,  but  the  portals  to  a  fairer  king- 
dom would  soon  be  unbarred.  Sancian,  indented 
with  many  little  bays  and  inlets,  is  a  rocky  and  barren 


ST.    FRANCIS    XAVIER  83 

spot,  and  was  then  untenanted  of  man,  save  for  the 
Portuguese  traders  who  came  ashore  from  their  ships 

which  they  burned  on  their 

Jancian  Xa\  i<  some  Por- 

!(1  among  then  old  Ei  [m 

iost  in  his  heart  and 

IS  brought  forward.   Will  they  help  him  to  land 

that  coast  of  China  s  throw 

r,   the   plan 

le.    It  w  \   Portuguese  to  enter 

table  land.     Sonic  had  tried  it.     They  had 

and   either   immediately   put   to   death  or 

e  now   undergoing  the  most   frightful  tortures   in 

lized  how  truth- 
fully they  spoke.     But  he  must  go.     The  land  of  his 

ins  is  before  him!     It  lures  him  on  as  a  magi 
Yet  the  dream  does  not  interfere  with  the  realities 
i^ostolic  life.     For  the  last  time  he  catechizes, 
k  on  the  ships,  in  the  huts  on  the  island, 
quarrels,  and  at  tin  nd  of  his  course 

ne  zealous  priest,  the  same  staunch  and  loving 
frien  has  ever  been.     There  is  even  a  purer 

flame  of  light  and  love  and  tenderness  as  the  lamp  of 
life  is  flickering  away  under  the  chilling  breath 

of  disappointment,  of  vain  and  empty  long- 
ing. Or  le  the  sails  of  the  Portuguese  ships 
fade  on  the  horizon,  image  to  the  Saint  of  his  vanish- 
ing dreams  of  a  kingdom  conquered  for  Christ,  but 
there  is  a  flash  of  sunshine  as  they  dip  beneath  the 
horizon's  rim,  sure  presage  of  the  light  of  another 
world,  to  cheer  him  with  its  beam. 

September  and  October  came  and  went.    The  gates 

1  barred.    Then  the  hopes  of  the  Saint  revived. 

had  met  a  Chinese  trader,  and  with  him  entered 

upon   a  sublimely  daring  bargain.     For  a   sum  that 

would  have  made  the  Chinese  trader  rich  for  life  he 


84  ST.    FRANCIS    XAVIER 

induced  him  to  land  him  alone  at  night  from  his  junk 
on  the  shore  of  China.  And  then,  ah,  God  would  do 
the  rest,  for  was  he  not  in  His  hands?  He  that 
watches  the  sparrow's  flight  and  gives  food  to  the 
ravens  of  the  air  when  their  young  ones  cry  for  meat, 
He  that  overshadowed  the  holy  youths  with  the  wings 
of  archangels  in  the  Babylonian  fires,  and  bade  the 
hungry  lions  crouch  lamb-like  at  Daniel's  feet,  He 
that  had  guarded  him  amid  the  swirling  waters  and 
the  wrath  of  men,  would  hold  him  with  the  strength 
of  His  everlasting  arms  and  protect  him  now.  "  In 
the  name  of  the  Father,  of  the  Son  and  the  Holy 
Ghost,"  he  will  not  fear  or  falter. 

Mid^November  came  and  with  it  the  appointed  time 
for  the  Canton  trader  to  take  Xavier  to  his  goal. 
From  the  shore  the  Saint  watched  the  wide  expanse 
jf  waters;  the  Chinese  junk  had  not  appeared.  A 
few  days  more  he  waited,  scanning  the  horizon,  every 
ripple  of  the  waves.  Save  for  the  "  Santa  Croce  "  at 
anchor  a  few  cables  away,  no  ship,  no  sail.  Man  had 
failed  him.  He  had  now  to  depend  on  God  alone. 
The  gates  of  China  were  barred;  slowly  the  portals 
of  Heaven  were  being  unfolded  before  him. 

Ten  years  of  titanic  labors  had  at  last  exhausted 
Xavier's  robust  frame.  The  dramatic  conflict  he 
had  gone  through  at  Malacca,  the  disappointment  he 
now  felt,  the  shattering  of  his  dreams  for  the  spiritual 
conquest  of  the  Chinese  Empire,  the  sight  of  the  prize 
eluding  his  pursuing  grasp,  the  solitude  and  actual 
destitution  to  which  he  was  now  reduced,  robbed  him 
of  the  last  remnants  of  his  strength.  He  •  felt  that 
he  must  die.  It  was  God's  will.  The  King  was  sum- 
moning him  from  the  strife  of  battle  to  lay  down 
his  arms. 

Soon  after  his  last  hopes  for  the  coming  of  the 
Chinese  trader  had  disappeared,  Xavier,  already  faint 
and   sick,   had   to   leave   the   shelter   of   the   "  Santa 


W'IKk  85 

the  rolling  of  th<  ned  him 

ith   which  he  had  I 

»re  he  must 

iidlv  Portuguese 

an  to  a  hut, 

Iter. 
It  faced  the  that  land  which  he  came  to  « 

It    la  fort. 

laithful  unto  her  ad.     The  few  era 

which   1  g  the  next    few   days   had  to   be 

the   P01  still  left  on  the  island, 

fering  from  hunger  and  want. 

'  >nly    two    C  1    with     Xavier    -the 

Chinese,  Antonio,  and  Christopher,  the  Malabar  Indian. 

mainly    from   the   simple   recital   of  the  devoted 

learn  the  details  of  the  last  days  of 

On  thai  stretched  on  a  coarse  pallet  on 

the  ground,   in  absolute  poverty.  r   lay   dying, 

ith  him  to  pronounce  a  last  absolu- 
tion, to  strengthen  him  for  his  journey  with  the  Body 
and  anoint  him  with  Holy  Oils.     But  the 
arms  of  his  crucifix,  hung  up  before  him  by  Antonio, 
seemed  to  shelter  him  within  their  lovirig  grasp  and 
on  to  him.     His  friends  were  gone.     He  saw  the 
ita    Crcce "    riding   to  the   swell   of   the   waves. 
Whei  that  dear  friend  Pereira,  where  Ignatius 

and  Simon  I  her  John  Fernandez, 

his  frier  Where  that  beloved  Brother 

Pierre   1-  j?      Surely   they   were   watching   and 

for  him  now,   for  his  soul,  like  the  soul  of 
g  and  the  souls  of  all  those  whom  the  King 
wants  to  pur  -  in  sore  distress  ony.     It 

holy  will  that  he  should   so   suffer.      For 
he  lightning  and  the  storm  strike  the  loftiest  nioun- 


86  ST.    FRANCIS   XAVIER 

tain  peaks,  so,  God  tries  the  hearts  of  those  who  draw 
nearest  to  Him. 

Now  and  again,  Antonio  tells  us,  the  mind  of  the 
Saint  seemed  to  wander.  But  even  then  his  heart 
was  with  God.  Even  then  he  prayed  and  exclaimed : 
"  Jesus,  Son  of  David,  have  mercy  on  me  " ;  "  Mother 
of  God,  remember  me."  The  Holy  Name  came  in- 
cessantly to  his  lips,  and  the  dying  soldier  of  Christ 
remembered  that  he  was  but  a  sinful  man  and  fer- 
vently repeated  the  prayer,  "  Do  Thou  have  mercy  on 
my  sins."  At  times  Antonio,  who  understood  most 
of  the  languages  commonly  used  by  Xavier,  heard 
him  pray  and  murmur  in  an  unknown  tongue.  The 
old  Basque  tongue,  undoubtedly,  the  one  in  which 
Xavier  had  recited  his  prayers  at  Maria  d'Azpilcueta's 
knees  in  the  dear  home  on  the  hills  of  Navarre.  And 
his  mother's  face  and  the  face  of  his  father  and  of 
that  sainted  Magdalena,  now  in  heaven,  were  bending 
over  him.  In  a  flash,  the  flash  that  comes  to  dying 
men  and  reveals  to  them  the  most  hidden  pages  of 
their  life's  record,  Francis  saw  the  castle  of  Xavier,  the 
halls  of  Sainte  Barbe,  the  Lady  chapel  at  Montmartre, 
where  he  had  pronounced  the  vows  his  lips  were 
framing  now,  poverty,  chastity,  obedience,  the  altar 
at  Vicenza  where  he  had  said  his  first  Mass,  Goa,  the 
Fishery  Coast  where  he  taught  the  poor  to  love  Christ, 
the  palm-groves  of  San  Thome,  the  cities  of  Japan, 
and  last,  the  great  empire  he  had  tried  to  enter. 

And  as  lifting  his  eyes  he  the  saw  the  curving  shores 
of  the  Promised  yet  forbidden  Land,  he  blessed  God 
for  all  His  goodness,  and  with  all  his  old  enthusiasm 
and  faith,  all  his  love  and  unfaltering  hope,  ex- 
claimed :  "  In  Thee  I  have  hoped ;  I  shall  not  be  con- 
founded forever. "  A  prophecy  marked  his  last  davs. 
The  Malabar  was  standing  by  his  bedside.  Xaxier 
fixed  his  glance  steadily  and  sadly  upon  him.  That 
glance  had  often  read  the  secrets  of  the  heart.     It 


ST.    FRANCIS    XAVIER  87 

now    read    the    tutu  "Wretched    man!"  he    ex- 

claimed.    The  import  of  the  Saint's  words  remained 
for  some  time  obscure.    After  th,  the  Malabar, 

forgetting   his   ni  1   a    lif< 

;  in  a  vulgar  brawl. 

Th<  On  November  27, 

an  hour  or  t  the   faithful   I 

nese  in  his  his  master's  bed,  be 

it   murmur. 
his  eyes  to  the  crucifix.      The  wind  came  through  the 
crevices  in  tl  of  the  hut,  the  sea  rose  slightly, 

the  black  hull  of  the  "  Santa  Croce  "  careened  a  little 
to  the  he  the  lapping  of  the  waters  creep- 

ing Up  the  shingle  of  th<  faintly  pulsed  in  the 

of  the  dying  Saint.     Antonio  bent  over  Xavier, 
gently  twined  the  unresisting  fingers  round  the  blessed 
symbol  of  faith,  charity  and  hope,  and  knelt 
to  re  blessing.     Francis  lifted  his  eyes  to 

Heaven,  then  bent  his  head.  His  soul  had  gone  to 
God! 

Death  does  not  close  the  career  of  the  Saints.  On 
their  transfer  from  Sanchian  and  Malacca  to  their 
final  resting  place  at  Goa,  the  hallowed  remains  of 
the  apostle  met  such  a  triumph  as  the  East  had  sel- 
dom witnessed.  All  India  knelt  to  do  them  reverence. 
Though  dead,  he  seemed  as  one  who  still  lived 
among  them.  That  body  which  Xavier  had  ever 
shielded  with  angelic  chastity  had  not  been  tainted 
the  corruption  of  the  grave.  He  looked  like  one 
that  slumbered  and  the  blood  seemed  to  be  coursing 
through  his  frame. 

The  crowning  glory  came  when  on  the  twelfth  of 
March,    162.  solemnly  enrolled  among 

the  Saints  by  Gregory  XV.  He  was  canonized  to- 
gether with  his  master  and  friend,  Ignatius  Loyola. 
They  had  been  united  in  labor  and  love,  they  were  not 
to  be  separated  in  glory.    And  every  year,  the  twelfth 


88  ST.    FRANCIS    XAVIER 

of  March,  anniversary  of  the  day  when  the  Church 
officially  recognized  Xavier  as  one  of  the  holiest  among 
her  children,  sees  millions  of  her  Faithful  close  that 
Novena  of  Grace  made  in  his  honor  and  which  is  in- 
variably crowned  with  extraordinary  favors. 

The  old  capital  of  India  so  dear  to  Xavier  has  lost 
nearly  all  its  former  glory.  Goa  is  a  city  of  memories 
and  ruins.  Its  streets  are  deserted  and  overgrown 
with  grass.  The  docks,  once  crowded  with  the  fleets 
of  the  East,  have  been  beaten  down  by  sand  and 
sea.  A  petty  official  rules  over  a  mere  handful  of 
European  traders  and  natives  in  the  city  where  men 
like  John  de  Castro  governed  an  empire.  But  in  Goa 
Xavier  rests.  The  presence  of  his  hallowed  remains, 
still  untainted  by  corruption,  fully  compensates  for 
the  glories  she  has  lost.  On  the  days  which  recall 
the  memory  of  the  apostle,  to  his  Church  and  shrine 
of  Bom  Jesus,  thousands  come  to  do  him  reverence. 
All  India,  all  the  East,  sends  her  representatives, 
Cingalese  and  Paravas,  men  of  Travancore,  the  chil- 
dren of  that  Japan  which  he  so  tenderly  loved.  On 
those  days  Goa  seems  to  regain  out  of  the  dim  past 
something  of  her  olden  splendor. 

If  in  Goa  Xavier  still  lives,  he  also  lives  and  ener- 
gizes in  the  Catholic  Church.  Few  Saints  are  so 
popular  as  he.  He  is  adventure  and  romance,  epic 
and  fairy  tale  ennobled  and  sanctified.  In  him  the 
labors  and  zeal  of  the  apostle  are  blended  with  perfect 
union  with  God.  His  long  journeys,  the  perils  he 
encountered  from  the  elements  and  the  wickedness 
of  man,  his  zeal  and  enthusiasm,  his  unworldliness, 
his  loyalty  to  the  King  he  had  chosen,  his  knightly 
daring,  his  gaiety  and  lovableness,  his  miracles,  the 
sorrows  he  bore  without  a  murmur,  the  enemies  he 
made,  the  friends  he  won,  the  lightning-like  rapidity 
of  his  conquests,  the  fruits  of  his  preaching  in  the 
hearts  of  Flindu,  Malay,  Japanese  and  European,  the 


8g 

i    his 
.  her 
•  her  children. 

'    and    to 

all   their 

i  >f  them- 

only  the  ;.  but  to 

n  which  he  pi 
his   life  and   virtues,   in   the 

proof  of 
which   he   carried   to   the 

led   with   all  the 
I   in   humanity.     His   work 
I   instrument,  the  work  of  man,  as  such 
ibject  to  Not  all  of 

it  has  survived.     "Many  of  the  Churches  founded  by 
themselves  and  their  successors  in  P; 
i  and  northern  Africa,  are  no  more.  Some 
of   the  missions   which   Xavier   founded   in   India  as 
n  the  Moluccas  have  practically  disappeared, 
ruin  of  that   splendid   work  can   be   readily 

The  fall  of  the  Portuguese  power,  the  natural 
ctor  of   the   Catholic  missions;  the   transfer  of 
those  vast  regions  to  the  Protestant 
England  and  Holland,   Mussulman  perse- 
>n  of  the  most  cruel  nature,  the  lack  of  mission- 
account    for    the    partial    disappearance, 
and  in  Travancore, 
ith  of  thousands.     The  seed  cast  by 
him  into  the  soil  of  Japan   1  r  been  trampled 

:er  his  departure  more  than  400,- 
000  Chri-  found  in  the  islands,  and  y< 

mining   persecuti 
in  the  hi  urch  could  not  blot  out  the 


90  ST.    FRANCIS   XAVIER 

Faith  which  he  had  taught  in  success  at  Yamaguchi, 
in  disappointment  and  tears  at  Miyako. 

In  the  Catholic  Church,  and  this  is  one  of  his 
greatest  titles  to  glory,  Xavier  is  the  apostle  of  the 
heroic  virtues,  of  contempt  for  the  prizes  of  earth, 
of  enthusiasm,  of  burning  love  of  his  Crucified  King, 
of  a  love  as  ardent  for  the  souls  which  Christ  re- 
deemed. He  is  a  voice  and  a  trumpet  that  summons 
to  high  endeavor  and  chivalrous  emprise.  Where  he 
trod,  and  inspired  by  his  example,  others  were  proud 
to  follow.  He  is  the  captain,  the  guide  of  the  white- 
robed  army  of  the  Priests  of  the  Foreign  Missions 
like  Theophane  Vanard,  of  the  Sons  of  Francis, 
Dominic  and  Ignatius,  like  John  de  Britto,  his  suc- 
cessor in  India,  and  Charles  Spinola,  his  imitator  in 
Japan,  who  carried  the  Cross  further  even  than  he 
could  venture,  and  who  for  their  Faith  gladly  laid 
down  their  lives.  Following  the  trail  which  Francis 
had  pointed  out  but  which  he  was  not  allowed  to 
blaze,  and  crowning  his  dreams  with  unexpected 
splendors,  his  Jesuit  brothers  Ricci  and  Verbiest  lift 
the  Cross  over  the  royal  palace  of  Pekin  and  are  re- 
ceived as  priests  and  ambassadors  in  that  vast  empire 
at  whose  barred  doors  he  died.  With  Xavier's 
strength,  zeal  and  romantic  daring  in  their  hearts, 
Marquette  preaches  Christ  amid  the  smoke  of  Indian 
campfires,  and  after  discovering  the  great  river,  dies 
almost  alone  in  the  solitude  of  the  forest,  while  Jogues 
and  Brebeuf  bury  themselves  in  the  Canadian  wilder- 
ness amid  the  wigwams  of  their  fiercest  enemies  and 
stain  the  snows  with  their  martyrs'  blood,  and  far  to 
the  South  other  brethren  of  his  preach  the  Gospel 
to  the  tribes  of  the  Amazon  and  the  Parana,  and, 
recalling  the  pastoral  scenes  of  olden  Arcady,  with 
the  Gospel  as  their  Constitution,  build  the  sylvan 
republics  of  the  Indian  Reductions  of  Paraguay. 

The  work  of  heroes  of  the  Faith  like  Xavier  can 


ST.    FRANCIS    XAVIER  91 

never  die,     To  reward  them   for  th<  e-souled 

I,  God  constantly  revives  their  vir 
in  tl  their  work   with 

something  of  His  own  strength  and  immortality. 


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